


Paths Aligned

by Namesonboats (Viken2592)



Series: Paths [3]
Category: Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game)
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Dark Disciple novelization spoilers, F/M, Important Inquisitor oc's, Jedi Culture & Tradition (Star Wars), Mantis Crew (Star Wars), Mild Sexual Content, Nightsister Culture (Star Wars), Planet Hopping, THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED, Unintentional child aquisition, Unknown Regions (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:55:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29027556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viken2592/pseuds/Namesonboats
Summary: Reunited, Cal and Merrin are ready to fight the Empire, and a radical idea on how to stop the Inquisitors grows in Cal. Driven by a disturbance in the Force, the Mantis crew follows two ships making a planetfall in a forgotten system of the Outer Rim. What they find will plunge them into an adventure that takes them to new places in the Galaxy, where they meet up with new and old allies and face new and old enemies. As they fight to realize Cal’s plans, Cal and Merrin’s relationship grows but is also tested. What will it take to stay on the same path?
Relationships: Cal Kestis/Merrin
Series: Paths [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2045972
Comments: 19
Kudos: 30





	1. New Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> 2020 beat me with a stick. I fell into a mild depression where I didn’t write anything for months. I finally managed to crawl out of that pit, why finishing this fic and posting it is a huge success for me. I hope you wish to join me on the journey, and that 2021 will be kinder to us all.
> 
> Shout out to my beta [Dor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dordean/pseuds/Dordean), who has patiently helped me overcome my worst writing quirks X) Thank you so much!
> 
> Please be aware that this fic contains spoilers for the novel Dark Disciple by Christie Golden. 
> 
> Paths Aligned will update once a week, on Mondays, to give my beta enough time to go through chapters.

In the fortress of Nur, a helmeted man gazes over the reconstruction work following the damage made by two surviving Jedi. The light from the engineers' underwater crafts sweeps over the welded corridors of durasteel resting on the ocean floor like giant worms.

A string of kelp catches the ray and glistens against the grey of the cliffs in a way that strikes the fourth brother as strangely beautiful. It's different from the view of the old headquarters in the Works—he doesn't miss the smoke of the turbines and the smell of sulfite of the industrial heart of Coruscant. The way the underwater life on Nur moves sluggishly around the fortress appeals to the constant buzz in his head, a somatic memory from the torture he endured.

He strides towards the fortress’s central hall and unlocks the fastening of his helmet with a hiss. His cybernetic eye, a bio-implant he got after Lord Vader pierced his skull with his lightsaber, contracts to lower the intake of light.

Ever since he lost his eye, he has focused on his role of furthering the quest to conquer the Galaxy and eliminate the Empire’s foes. Before the mutilation, he was a child. Today, he is a brother.

The doors to the central hall open with a hiss. The brother steps into the circular room dominated by a center table, flanked by two purge troopers with saber staves in hands. A cold light from the lamps falls through the thick transparisteel of the windows and illuminates the scales of slithering eel.

The brother catches the sight of a holo image of a man in a dark mask that vanishes; his face twitches, and his pulse leaps in his veins.

The Grand Inquisitor observes him with chin raised, hands behind his back. The brother clears his mind. Although not Force-sensitive, the Grand Inquisitor was intuitive to his disciple’s feelings.

"The fourth," the Grand Inquisitor says. "I sense that you have accepted the consequences of your trials. You have learned. Grown stronger. You are ready for your first solo assignment."

A thrill of excitement wanders along the skin on the fourth brother’s back. "Fourth" never meant rank, but the order in which they were captured. Younger than the rest, he had never—hitherto—been given the honor of an individual task.

"Finally," he says and takes a step forward. "I am ready to hunt the Jedi who—"

He goes silent at the Grand Inquisitor's glare.

A flash of regret runs through the brother. He shouldn't have rushed to conclusions and mentioned the young Jedi who escaped Lord Vader's grasp twice, the one who killed the ninth and the fifth sister.

His mind still reeled at the thought of his sister’s deaths, not the least the second sister’s, for failing Lord Vader.

"In due time, young one," the Grand Inquisitor says. The air returns to the room and into the brother's lungs. "But first, you will pursue a subject of project Harvester. We have received information about a possible candidate found by a band of pirates in the Gaulus sector. Apparently, the ship they raided came from a planet in the Unknown Regions. I want you to take care of the trade."

A sour taste of disappointment rises in the brother’s throat. He was trained for greater quests than to trade some kid with a bunch of pirates! Hunting down the Jedi would bring him the glory he craved, the vengeance he needed, and the respect of his remaining brothers and sisters. He was still nauseous from shame at his passivity during their mission to kill the former Jedi Eeth Koth—he never told anyone how the aftermath, with a sister and a brother dead at Vader's hand, caused him nightmares for weeks.

"But—the Jedi still has the Holocron."

"Which will be his demise!” The Grand Inquisitor sneers. “We will find him as soon as he fetches any Force-sensitive child to train them. It will save us a lot of time and fuel to let him pursue these children across the Galaxy."

The Grand Inquisitor scrutinizes the fourth brother.

"Succeed in this mission, the fourth, and you may be chosen to accompany Lord Vader in the search for this Jedi. If I've been told correctly, he should not be much of a challenge. He has apparently formed an attachment to a Nightsister, and thus, he is weak. The other Jedi, however…"

The fourth brother holds his breath. The Grand Inquisitor spoke of the one who proved to be strong enough to stand against Vader. He has seen fragments of the recorded security vids; she was formidable with the lightsaber.

"We will find her, too."

"Yes, Grand Inquisitor." The brother fixates his eye to prevent it from twitching. "Forgive me, but… _How_ will you find them?"

The Grand Inquisitor lifts his gaze from the holo table, his high forehead wrinkled in momentary surprise. He smirks.

"Like with Unduli, we will use bait… It's time to make Eeth Koth's death known to the wider public and show the Galaxy that the Empire spares no one affiliated to the Jedi. That"—he raises an eyebrow—"should do the trick. If not, the young Jedi is certain to make a mistake, somewhere, sometime. We will catch him soon enough."

The fourth brother nods. Before he places his helmet onto this head, the Grand Inquisitor stops him with a gesture.

"This new subject," he says, "Lord Vader believes this mission might unfold needed information on the Unknown Regions. It could uncover other escaped Jedi in hiding… Such as Quinlan Vos."

A black wave of hatred soars through the fourth brother's chest—his face twitches.

The Grand Inquisitor scrutinizes his silent outburst with a fixed stare on his synthetic eye.

"Your antipathy for Vos will serve you, fourth, whether he is alive or not. Tap into your hatred. Let it carry you. Report to me once you have acquired the subject."

The fourth brother wastes no time. He allows the muscles around his eye to relax and steers towards the doors to board his ship. One last thought stops him in his tracks.

"Grand Inquisitor, if I may ask… how is the child? The one we acquired on Merokia?"

The Grand Inquisitor gains an aloof expression.

"Once the subjects of project Harvester are acquired, I don't meddle in their upbringing—not until they are strong enough to serve the Empire. She was brought to Arkanis; that is all I know. Go. I will tolerate no more questions."

The fourth brother leaves for the corridor that leads to the hangar where his ship awaits. The sound of his boots echoes out into the dark ocean outside.

* * *

Merrin drifts out of a dream, green and swirling like the water of life, by an unfamiliar tingle along the edges of her mind. She frowns into the darkness, interrupted by a small light of the panels by her door.

Outside her small cot, the various switches and buttons on the Mantis blink in slow pulses. Greez's snores reach her from the cockpit where he sleeps, covered in his old plaid and tipped to rest horizontally.

She taps the door of Cere's old bunk and opens it carefully. Cal lifts his head from his pillow.

"Hey. Did I wake you?"

He raises to sit. BD-1 flicks his panels with a drowsy bleep.

She settles beside Cal and whispers in turn.

"Was that you?"

"Yeah. Sorry."

"What did you do?"

He pulls a hand through his hair and lets out a soft snort through his nostrils.

"I reached out for your Force signature. I wanted to"—his blush brightens the semidarkness—"to make sure last night wasn't a dream."

He’s talking about her return. A mix of affection and confusion rises in Merrin.

"My Force signature?"

"Yeah. Everyone has one, but in Force wielders, it's much stronger."

A knot tightens in her stomach.

"I was not taught to wield the Force. Only our magick."

"I know, but… the Nightsister magick is an outlet of the Force—although there is something different about it. Either way, you’re a Force user. Here; feel my Force signature."

He reaches for her hand and places it against his chest. A steady thrum moves against her palm.

"That is your heartbeat."

"Not that. Behind it."

Merrin frowns. She senses something, like a shape without form. A light inside him shines in a blur that is possible to touch.

Cal nods.

"There."

She lifts her gaze to his. The knot in her stomach dissolves into warmth.

The ship jerks in a sudden movement; Cal and Merrin grasp the edge of the bunk with surprised gasps. BD-1 drops on his face in a muffled beep.

"What was that?"

Cal helps her on her feet. They leave for the galley, past the terrarium where the various plants rest in their slumber and pass the holo table to reach the cockpit. Outside, a red giant star hovers in space and illuminates a few orbiting planets in an orange tint.

Greez is by the steering handle, his eyebrows drawn together in a frown and his hair unkempt from the sudden awakening.

"Sorry if I gave you a heart attack, but those guys over there"—he points into space at two small ships that disappear into the atmosphere of a nearby planet "—jumped outta hyperspace, not even a click away!”

"What kind of ships are they?" Cal asks.

"Who cares!" Greez waves in irritation at BD-1, who has jumped onto the panels in front of him. "All I know is their pilots are out to lunch!"

Cal closes his eyes and opens them again. He frowns.

"Something’s not right.”

Merrin agrees. The energies, the Force, as Cal calls it, move in curious patterns. It reminds her of how the air bent when the brothers went for a hunt on Dathomir, like the stretch of a rubber band.

Cal sinks into the jump seat and fastens the belt.

“Greez. Take us down.”

Merrin tenses. Cal was not the type to sit on the sidelines and watch as if things had no consequence to him, but something about this has her guts sinking.

Greez gapes.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me. Those guys are probably pirates!”

“Maybe,” Cal says, his jaw set. “I can’t explain it, but there’s something about those ships. Come on, set us down, and we’ll check it out.”

BD-1 chirps and adjusts his camera eye. Greez presses his lips to a line, flips a switch by his side, and pulls the steering handle to the left.

* * *

The Mantis lands on the dark volcanic rock of the planet. Beside them, silent mountaintops loom over swirls of clouds that tumble like great animals down the slopes.

Merrin steps onto the ledge, her senses alert. A flush tells her there’s a river beyond the hills. The air is dry with a tinge of acid at the base of her throat—they shouldn’t linger on this planet for long.

Cal steps onto the ground, BD-1 on his shoulders and lightsaber in hand. The light of the giant star deepens the red of his hair.

He nods at her. They venture toward the base of the nearest mountains, towards the sound of the river. A small creature covered in spikes scurries by their feet; BD-1 attempts to scan it, but Cal stops him with a soft ‘not now, buddy.’

They climb to overlook the river and the plateau beyond the mountain. Mist creeps along the riverbank. The stone under their feet is porous and covered in a coarse moss that shifts in orange, teal, and brown. Merrin nips one of the buds. The plant emits the faint acidic scent to the air; it might have interesting properties for potions.

“There!” Cal whispers. Merrin jerks her gaze from the moss. The ships they spotted earlier lie on their bellies beyond the ridge of a cliff. The larger of the vessels, a medium freighter with green paint on her hull, opens by the fin tail. The lights of the cargo hold spill onto the soil below where two men descend the jetty with a small prisoner before them, her hands bound with cuffs on the front.

BD-1 jumps from Cal’s shoulder and peeks out from the edge of the boulder. Cal and Merrin join him.

The men, oblivious of their onlookers, frogmarch the prisoner towards the other ship, a scout vessel with pointed mandibles to the front. Merrin fixes her gaze on the person in cuffs. It looks like a child, small, wearing loose pants and a grey cloth twisted around their torso with a collar that flaps in the wind.

When the prisoner lifts her head, the hood slides to her shoulders. Her eyes are large and filled with tears.

Merrin holds back a gasp. It _is_ a child—a Human girl.

She is who they felt earlier when Cal convinced Greez to make planetfall. Her Force signature calls like the beat of a panicked heart.

“No.”

Cal jumps the boulder and ignites his lightsaber. The orange hue washes over the moss. The people on the ground below push the girl down with a shout and reach for their blasters.

On instinct, Merrin pushes a part of her power into Cal’s saber arm and summons a bolt of ichor, momentarily confused by the unfamiliar red tint to the swirls in her hand. Cal ricochets the blasts from the smuggler with his lightsaber and hits the first man in the chest. He tenses his muscles to dash strike the next blast.

By the scout vessel, a crimson blade comes alive with a hiss. A helmeted man steps out of the mist, wearing the Imperial insignia on his shoulder.

Merrin will never be able to see the red of a Sith lightsaber blade without a jolt of fear in her heart. Two other emotions well inside her. Cold hatred—and worry. The first, she is used to; it fed her on Dathomir when she survived, alone. The other is new; it has grown since she joined Cal and came to care for him.

In the depths of the caverns on Dathomir, she saw their possible future, and in that vision, they were a family. She’s not going to let anything happen that could jeopardize that future.

With a well-aimed throw, she plants a bolt of whatever energy this planet grants her onto the arm of the man with the blaster. He shrieks as his glove oozes into a pulp and drops the weapon to the ground.

Cal raises his saber into a defensive stance. The Inquisitor rushes at Cal, jumps in a powerful overhead slash, and meets his orange blade. The hums of their lightsabers cut through the morning mist, and the waters of the river splash by their feet.

Merrin hurries to the ships. She’s unwilling to leave Cal, but she has bolstered him with her magick; he can hold his ground against the Inquisitor long enough to allow her to help the girl. BD-1 scurries with her on his metal feet.

The girl recoils when they arrive; she digs her heels into the ground and pushes back.

“We are here to help you.”

Merrin’s words have no effect; the girl shakes her head and cowers when they get closer. Merrin grabs the cuffs around the girl’s wrists and whispers an incantation, trying her best not to be distracted by the violent clashes of lightsabers a few meters away.

The seal of the cuffs melts in smoke that stings Merrin’s nostrils. The girl shakes the cuffs from her hands and pulls herself up. She inhales a deep breath, and with a faint blur, she disappears into thin air.

Merrin’s brain short-circuits. She has never seen anyone teleport beside her Sisters. BD-1 beeps towards the lower part of the river, where the girl grasps the wall covered in moss to hide behind a natural parapet in the cliff.

Merrin redirects her attention to Cal. The Inquisitor sends a powerful blast towards him that rumbles the stones; Cal evades and repositions into a defensive stance.

Merrin sends another part of her power into Cal to enable him to kill the Inquisitor. The Galaxy will be rid of one more of the people who has sided with the Sith, and she will have a small part of her vengeance.

Cal evades another overhead slash and parries the next flurry of crimson as the Inquisitor pushes his advance.

Merrin blinks with a sinking feeling inside.

Why doesn’t Cal attack? She’s seen him combat multiple enemies before; he’s a skilled fighter. Why is he passive?

On instinct, she summons ichor to her palms. This time, the planet’s energies coalesce into amber, not unlike the stones around her necklace. She sends the ichor into the back of the Inquisitor, who staggers forward in a grunt. He rolls and lifts his hand; she teleports a few feet away when he attempts to Force lift her to the sky.

“Merrin!” Cal shouts in a plea. “Don’t—”

The Inquisitor pushes Cal away with a harsh Force blow that sends him into the river with a splash. Merrin runs. BD-1 jumps onto her shoulders and chatters in an upset binary with his camera eye lit onto the frothing surface.

Cal’s head appears among the waves. He swims, but the flush of the currents pulls him further down the stream.

Merrin searches the way ahead to a part of the riverbed that meanders through the base of the mountain. She uses the diminishing powers in her veins and teleports to hurtle onto her stomach and reach out with her hand.

Cal catches it and uses her as leverage to pull himself out of the river. On all fours, he coughs and spits murky water. BD-1 chirps and flings him a stim.

The crimson shade of a lightsaber blade spills over the stone.

Merrin raises her palms and digs into her powers. This planet is unknown to her; she’s unaware of how deep its energies go, but she will not allow this helmeted devil to come one step closer.

She raises a wall of stone that erupts by the Inquisitor's feet. He lifts his chin to stare at the hard wave and tenses with the lightsaber in hand. The rumble shakes the ground. Small particles rain over their heads. Merrin digs into herself further; _grant me the power to slay this man…_

A pull jerks her back—she releases her powers in surprise, and the wave of stone falls with a crash. The crack she’s opened in the cliff halts when Cal puts his arm around her and drops from the ledge. He uses the Force to perform a double-jump in the air and rushes a few steps on the ridge before he loses balance; they tumble onto the river bed with simultaneous ‘oufs.’

Merrins’ head spins. It all happened so fast. Her knees and the bases of her palms ache from landing on the coarse rock, and a taste of iron blooms in her mouth.

“Who are you?”

Merrin, Cal, and BD-1 dart their gazes to the left. The girl has climbed down the cliffs and landed to meet them. Her movements are hesitant, her voice full of suspicion.

Cal stands. He lifts his gaze and searches for the red hue of a lightsaber blade.

“We’re here to help you,” he says and reaches out with his hand to the girl. “There’s a ship on the other side of that mountain. You can trust us.”

BD-1 blips and bleeps in what Merrin has learned to interpret as his most kind binary, but the girl blinks as if he’s about to attack her.

“I don’t want them to take me,” she whispers.

“We will not let them,” Merrin says.

The girl swallows. With a tremble, she takes Cal’s hand.

A crack erupts in the ridge above. The stone separates by the forceful slice of a red blade. BD-1 shrieks.

Cal and Merrin stumble back. The girl gasps; in a blink, she, Cal, and BD-1 are gone.

For a second time that day, Merrin staggers in shock. Teleporting oneself is one thing; teleporting others is impossible.

Who is this girl?

The sight of the Inquisitor pulls her out of her state. He has lost his helmet, and in his skull rolls and retracts a synthetic eye in tandem with his attack pattern.

She jumps a slash of the Inquisitor’s blade and summons a bolt of energy that hits him on the leg. He falters, but it’s not enough to stop him.

“Merrin!”

Cal shouts from the other side of the river. Rubble and dust fly around his feet as the Mantis descends beside him in a whoosh. Using the last of her powers, Merrin teleports over the river and runs to the open Mantis. Cal guides the girl inside and takes Merrin’s hand. Together, they stumble into the ship.

As the Mantis lifts, a red scar traverses the closed doors. Greez spins the ship and flies; the Inquisitor falls off the retracting landing gear onto the dark stones of the volcanic planet.

They breach the atmosphere and fall into the hyper lane as soon as the large fin of the Mantis rotates into a vertical line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic takes place in 14-13 BBY.
> 
> [Project Harvester](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Project_Harvester)


	2. The Child

“Hey!” Greez peers over his shoulder from the pilot’s seat and eyes the new passenger up and down. “Who the blazes is that?”

In a hesitant step, the girl bumps into the round table by the sofa. When BD-1 jumps onto its surface with a friendly beep, she jerks from him in a defensive motion.

Cal pulls a hand through his soaked hair and gestures at his crewmates.

“My name is Cal. This is Merrin and BD-1. The guy over there with the sideburns is Greez. We’re the Mantis crew.”

The girl smoothens the dark fabric of her pants. A patch of dirt falls on the floor.

“My name is Iris.”

Greez jumps off his seat and steps into the galley.

“I guess you’re what these guys’ felt wasn’t right’.” He places all four hands on his hips. “Well, welcome to the Mantis. Never thought we’d pick up an actual kid.”

He glares at the puddle that forms under Cal’s boots.

“You’re soaking my ship! Go change, before I have rust!”

Cal snorts a laugh and lifts his hands in an 'ok'-gesture. 

“How old are you, Iris?” Merrin asks and steps to the side to let Cal pass her towards the back of the ship.

The girl darts her cautious glance.

“Seven.”

Greez lets out a low whistle

“You’re just a tadpole!”

“I will make us tea.” Merrin steps up the small stairs to the pantry. After a few moments, Cal returns wearing a clean shirt and pants. He settles on the sofa and gestures to Iris with a smile that she is welcome to sit with him. She does, tensed as if the cushions were made of glass. Soon, a fresh scent of tea spreads in the galley.

“Do you know who those people are?” Cal asks. “The ones who caught you?”

Iris’s eyes turn hard.

“No. I hate them! They said I was worth a lot of credits.”

“What about the man in the mask? The one with the red lightsaber.”

Iris shakes her head and swallows.

“Iris… He’s an Imperial Inquisitor, scouring the Galaxy for Force-sensitive children. We’re also hunted by the Empire.”

The Mantis crew share heavy glances.

“That’s why they took me?” Iris whispers. “Because of what I can do?”

“Yes,” Cal says.

The girl makes a pause while taking the information in.

“This is all his fault,” she whispers. 

“Who?”

“No one.”

A moment of awkward silence ensues. Cal rises to rummage the cupboard above the sink and returns with two bacta patches that he gently offers to wrap around Iris’s bruised wrists. She blinks in hesitation but accepts.

Merrin checks the infusion made from the herb she earlier found. A milky vapor with a fresh scent rises from the pot; she pours it into a cup and takes a sip. It’s refreshing, with a faint tangy aftertaste.

She offers the cup to Iris. The girl accepts it with a tired blush across her nose.

“What’s this?”

“Tea. It will help you relax.”

Iris tentatively sips the hot beverage while Cal places a patch on her other wrist. The wrinkle between her eyebrows smoothens, she heaves her chest in a sigh.

Merrin sits beside her.

“What you did—it’s called teleportation. It is considered a powerful ability in my clan. How long have you been able to do it?”

The blush on Iris’ face deepens.

“Not long. I’ve only done it twice before…”

“And your ability to teleport others?”

Iris fidgets with the handle of the cup.

“I didn’t know I could do that.”

“Iris,” Cal asks, “has anyone taught you the ways of the Force?”

Iris tenses her lips. She places the cup onto the table with a clunk.

“I—it’s—those men that took me, they didn’t give me any food.”

Greez flies from his seat.

“I’ll fix you some Scazz steak!”

Merrin stifles her impulse to frown at the way the girl changed the topic.

Iris lifts her eyes to Cal, her mouth drawn to a line.

“Are you a Jedi?”

“Yes. Do you know about us?”

She leans back with her arms crossed on her chest.

“The whole Galaxy knows about you. You fought the Independent systems when they wanted to break free from the Republic.”

Cal’s face falls.

“That’s not who we were. We were peacekeepers. You mustn’t believe the propaganda.”

Iris softens at the unhappy look on Cal’s face.

“I’m sorry. You helped me. I don’t even care about the war anyway...”

Greez returns with a plate full of steak and fried kajaka root that he places before Iris in a clink. Her eyes spark; she reaches for a root and puts it in her mouth.

“Iris,” Merrin says, “where did those men catch you?”

“I don’t know,” Iris says thickly with bulging cheeks. She chews and swallows. “I was on my way to the core worlds! I’ve heard so much about the floating gardens above Coruscant… the lake district of Naboo… the rain forests of Alderaan…”

She shifts an eager gaze at the crew.

“Can you take me there? Can you?”

Greez scoffs.

“Are you aware that the core worlds are under Imperial control? One mistake from you and it’s off to Inquisitor training.”

Iris shrinks with a weak ‘oh’.

“What is the name of your home planet?” Merrin asks as hard as she deems necessary. This girl is withholding things from them, and it doesn’t bode well.

Iris leans back on the sofa with a pout.

“Does it matter? I don’t wanna go back there.”

The alarm bells in Merrin go off, but she remains silent.

“We will try to get you somewhere safe,” Cal says, “but we have to make sure we’ve shaken that Inquisitor off our tail first.”

BD-1 steps onto the couch before Iris with a whistle. She stiffens with a wide gaze.

“Is BD-1 making you uncomfortable?” Merrin asks.

Iris scoots to the side and eyes the little droid warily.

“A bit. I don’t like droids.”

BD-1 sinks his camera eye with a sad beep. Cal sends him a compassionate smile and pats him on the head.

“BD is our friend. He’s part of the crew. Get to know him and I’m sure you’ll like him!”

Merrin purses her lips. Cal forgets that some cultures live without droids. Her only encounter with synthetic beings before she met BD-1 were the ones that marched upon her land and slaughtered her Sisters.

Iris lifts a hand to conceal a great yawn. Her eyes gleam in the light from the table.

“Would you mind if I go to sleep? I’m tired.”

Merrin nods to Cal. The infusion was kicking in.

“Take my cot,” he says. “I’ll show you where it is.”

Iris rises from the sofa to follow him up the small stairs past the terrarium.

A few minutes later, Cal returns. Greez has ventured up to the kitchenette to sniff the aromatic contents of the pot.

“This smells nice! Can I have some?”

“If you wish to sleep,” Merrin replies.

“It’s a sedative? You know how to make drugs?”

“I’m a witch, remember?”

Greez places the lid on the pot with a clink.

“You’re a Nightsister.” He lifts on the balls of his feet to peer down at Cal. “I’m going downstairs to fix you a place to sleep. No offense, but I’d rather you not do your shut-eye on the sofa. Gotta take care of the ship!”

He glances at Merrin. “Unless you two wanna share your bunk. Might get uncomfy, though.”

Cal’s face reddens to match that of his hair.

“No, that’s—I’ll sleep in the cargo,” he says. BD-1 bleeps.

Merrin would have laughed at his embarrassment if she didn’t have a question screaming to be asked at the back of her head—once Greez is out of eavesdrop range.

Greez tsk’s and leaves to climb the ladder to the lower deck. Once he’s gone, Cal leans his elbows on his thighs and smiles at Merrin.

“Thanks for making that tea.” He nods towards his cot. The blush on his face recedes. “Iris looked like she needed the rest. It’s crazy, huh—”

“Cal. Why did you not fight the Inquisitor? Why did you not let me kill him?”

Cal closes his mouth.

Merrin controls her breath against the swirls of frustration in her chest.

“Do you enjoy being hunted? It is only a matter of time before the Inquisitors find you again. You know what happens when they do. I can’t...”

She goes silent and swallows a lump in her throat. Cal scoots closer and reaches out to take her hand. His palm is warm and calloused from the hilt of his lightsaber.

“Merrin,” he says, “I've been doing a lot of thinking. Ever since Nur, I can’t get the image of Trilla out of my head—the way she looked before she died. When Cere spoke to her and told her she was sorry… She turned. It’s why Vader killed her; he sensed that Trilla wanted to let go of her hatred.”

BD-1 coos. Cal eyes shine, pleading for her to understand.

“What if other Inquisitors can turn? They’re former Jedi padawans who were tortured into joining the dark side.” He shakes his head. “I don’t want to kill them, not if there’s a chance they can turn back to the light.”

Shock rings through Merrin. It takes all the willpower she has to restrain her protest. She was brought up to view compassion as a weakness, and her compassion towards the Sith is non-existent. Cal’s idea that the Inquisitors can be turned is idiotic and suicidal.

Her anger fades at a thought. If Cal didn’t have this absurd faith in others, would he have accepted her into the Mantis crew?

Unlike anyone she has met, he is strong not despite his kindness and compassion, but because of it. He has survived this far being a caring, suicidal idiot, and although she fails to understand it, she has always trusted him.

She squeezes his hand. A muffled thud and a curse from Greez reaches them from below.

“Soon, you’ll tell me you believe Vader can be turned.”

Her eyes widen at his sincere gaze.

“You _do_ believe he can be turned.”

“Not by me. But by the right person, maybe. Someone who loves him.”

“You are talking about the man who tried to kill you twice.”

“Yeah,” Cal says with a soft snort. “Look, I know it sounds crazy. But I believe we can do this—together.”

The words warm her insides, but her hatred for the Sith is not so easily deterred. She pins Cal with a stern gaze.

“How do you plan to ‘save’ the Inquisitors? Do you know how many there are left?”

He blushes.

“No… We’ll have to make plans; for us, and for Iris too. But if we find a way to turn them, even just one… It would be worth it. I’d rather stop this hunt than continue fleeing.”

Merrin glances towards the back of the ship and suppresses a sigh.

“Greez will not like your plan.”

* * *

The Fourth brother slams his gloved fist into his ship’s panels. His eye twitches violently; his vision spins. When the Grand Inquisitor finds out that he did not only failed the simple mission to fetch the girl but also allowed the young Jedi and the Nightsister to escape…

When Lord Vader finds out—

The Fourth brother places his head in his hands in a strangled whine. He fights a swirl of nausea strong enough to send a rush of cold sweat on his back.

He needs a plan.

An idea strikes him. His eye sharpens his vision into space outside dotted with pinpricks of stars.

He flips the switch to his comm with an impatient gesture and taps in a code into his system. After a minute, the com link buzzes to life.

“Yeah?”

“I have a job for you.” A static buzz covers the shouts of a man in the background. The sound of blaster shots whizzes through the comm.

The brother rips the link from the holder and lifts it to his mouth.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yeah. As long as you have the credits, we’ll take care of your problems.”

“You’ll get your credits,” the brother hisses and explains the deal. He smacks the com link to the panel and prepares his ship for the jump to hyperspace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Iris is technically not my character. She exists in the fringes of the star wars canon and is not mentioned by name. I treat her as my oc.
> 
> Chapter title from the Mandalorian :)


	3. The Cave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains spoilers from the Dark Disciple novel.

Cal sinks his double-bladed lightsaber by a large insect-like creature, cut apart from the orange beam, and surveys the grassy plateau of the moon they have landed on—a regular dirtball, according to Greez, who stays in the Mantis. The landscape billows in a gust of wind.

BD-1 scans the gleaming insect with a whoop.

“Always so curious,” Cal says with a smile and thumbs the blades down. He glances behind him at Merrin and Iris who check the surroundings for more insects.

“You really meant it,” Iris says and stretches her neck to peek at BD-1. “When you said he was your friend.”

“Yeah.” Cal allows BD-1 to jump onto his shoulders. “He’s saved my life multiple times.”

BD-1 beeps affectionately.

“But,” Iris taps the insect with her foot; it half-rolls in a crunch sound. “You treat him like he has a soul, or something.”

Cal clips the lightsaber to his hip, unsure how to reply. Beside him, Merrin steps over the branch of a fallen tree with needles that emit a scent of resin.

“What is a soul to you, Iris?” Merrin tears a small branch of the tree and puts in her pouch.

“I don’t know,” Iris says with a slight blush, “but I know droids don’t have them.”

“I think you do,” Cal says and smiles at BD-1, who tilts his head with a beep.

“This is a good spot.” Merrin stops by a nearby pond that mirrors the round shape of the moon’s planet on its surface. “Show us your abilities.”

“Ok.” Iris pulls her hand along her arm in an awkward gesture. She closes her eyes, tenses, and stumbles forward with a jerk to her hands.

“Um,” her blush spreads to her neck. “I know I can do it. I just have to…”

“Iris,” Cal says, “what do you know about the Force?”

“Ugh, the Force.” She rolls her eyes.

Cal’s mind stumbles at that. It was not the reaction he had anticipated.

Iris lifts her face to Merrin with a curious spark in her eyes.

“You’re not a Jedi, are you?”

“I am a Nightsister.”

“What’s that?”

“We are Force wielders…” Merrin glances at Cal who smiles. “But we are not Jedi.”

Iris takes a step closer. Her boots crunch against the coarse grass.

“You can teleport. I saw it. You can teach me.”

A tendril of worry rises in Cal. Ever since he destroyed the holocron with the Force-sensitive children, he’s given up the idea of himself as a teacher of the Force. The vision inside the vault on Bogano of him as an Inquisitor was enough to convince him never to pursue that path.

Finding Iris was an ironic twist. She needs to know the basics of the Force, at least, but this...

The Nightsisters used the dark side of the Force. That’s what Merrin can teach her.

A wave of shame washes over Cal. Merrin is not a Sith. She once mentioned she didn’t know of the dark side of the Force, nor of the Empire.

Merrin lingers her gaze on Iris with an undecipherable expression.

“Close your eyes.”

Iris blinks but does as Merrin says. A beetle buzzes past above her head.

“What do you feel?”

Iris licks her lips.

“The wind?”

“Go deeper.”

Iris relaxes her shoulders and draws her eyebrows together in concentration. Intrigued, Cal holds his breath.

“There’s life in the ground. Water runs through the roots of the trees. There are creatures in the soil, in the air...”

Merrin nods.

“Where do you begin, and where does everything end?”

Iris opens her eyes, confused, but pinches them close again at the sharp eye cast from Merrin.

“I don’t know!”

“Good. Hold on to that. That boulder next to the Mantis with the star-shaped moss, do you see it? Keep your eyes closed.”

“Yes.”

“Do not try to move your body there. _Know_ that you are already there.”

Iris inhales. In a blink, she’s gone.

Filled with awe, Cal peers in the direction of the Mantis. Iris perches on the stone with her hand in a triumphant gesture. Taking a step, she slips on the moss and falls on her behind with a yelp.

“Are you ok?” Cal yells. BD-1 beeps in a sing-song tune.

Iris lifts a thumb from behind the rock. After a few attempted tries, she teleports back to Merrin’s side with a grin on her face.

“Now,” Merrin says, “show us how you teleported Cal and BD-1.”

Iris's smile fades. She kicks at a morsel of stone on the ground.

“I don’t know how I did that. It wasn’t on purpose. I just—I didn’t want us to die.”

Cal opens his mouth when a low rumble erupts behind his back. Pebbles dance by their feet.

“Iris!” Cal shouts and ignites his lightsaber in a hum. “Get inside the Mantis!”

Wide-eyed, the girl turns to sprint. After a few steps, she teleports to safety.

Merrin whispers an incantation. Green vapor surrounds her body to make her invisible.

The soil by Cal’s feet erupts in a cloud of dust and clay; ripped-apart moss rain through the air. A worm, covered in scales and large like the Mantis’ fin, raises its body from the ground in a hiss. Its head is crowned by long feelers and a string of saliva dangles from its maw.

Cal rolls when the creature slams to the ground with a screech. He attacks with a slash to his saber and hits the insectoid’s chitinous exoskeleton in a shower of sparks. Cal blinks, surprised to see that the blow merely singed the surface of the creature’s armor.

The worm swings its head in an arch. Cal leaps onto the nearby cliff and runs along the side to a corner. With a snap to his arms, he separates his saber into two and whirls them at the worm's throat. The creature recoils in a scream and shoots its feelers out in a surprise move. The strings entangle Cal’s arm.

Cal groans in pain. The feelers burn through the fabric of his shirt and the smell of seared flesh tells him he needs to get out of this mess, fast.

He severs the strings with a slash to his saber. The creature releases him in a shriek and raises its head. From behind, bolts of ichor open the carapace in green smoke to expose tender flesh.

Cal seizes the momentum and uses the Force to slow the worm. He runs to the open wound and cuts the worm in two with his lightsaber a heartbeat before the Force releases its grip on the worm. Another bolt of ichor fizzes by its head; Cal jumps and stabs his saber into the exposed hole in the carapace.

The creature shakes and falls to the ground in a bang. It twitches before it dies.

Cal thumbs off his lightsaber and heaves his chest in a labored breath. The sting on his arm is bad; beads of cold sweat gather on his temple.

BD-1 runs to him and offers a stim.

Cal pushes the syringe into his arm. He grits his teeth.

“Is Iris ok?” he asks Merrin, who approaches with a frown in worry.

“Yes. She is in the Mantis.” Merrin lifts a hand to his arm.

“Good,” he says. His head spins. “I’ll be ok; I just took a stim.”

“No,” she says and scrutinizes the wound from the feeler. “This is poison. It is going to spread.”

A cold hand grips Cal’s heart. Poison? Merrin teleports and returns in an instant with hands full of water from the pond.

“Sit,” she says, “take off your poncho.”

He lifts it over his head.

“And this.” She impatiently indicates his shirt.

He’s in too much pain to protest and strips to release his arm from his shirt. Red marks meander along his bicep down to the elbow. It doesn’t look good. Another icy bolt of fear wanders down his spine. Is he going to lose his arm?

Merrin tilts her hands and pours the crystalline water over the red marks. Cal immediately relaxes his muscles. The cool liquid dampens the pain, but the pressure in his head from the poison still builds. He concentrates all his efforts to use the Force and prevent it from spreading.

He opens his eyes when Merrin sits by his side again. He hadn't noticed that she left. She pours another handful of water over a tuft of green moss with small beads of white seeds in it. As she places it on his arm, she murmurs words in her sacred language. Cal recognizes it from when he found memories in the Force during his search for the Astrium on Dathomir.

She ends her incantation by a “stim, please, BD-1.” In a moment, the familiar sting of the syringe enters Cal’s shoulder, replaced by the soothing effects of the liquid.

His head clears in matters of seconds. Energy soars through his veins. When he peeks down on his arm, the marks that previously glowed red have receded to his normal skin tone. He flexes his hand and curls it into a fist.

“That’s amazing,” he exhales. “How did you know the moss would work against the poison?”

She smiles in pride—and relief, he sees it in the way she sighs—and slides her fingertips along his arm in a slow caress.

“I am a Nightsister, remember? It should be fine, but we should use your bacta as well.”

Cal’s follow-up question is stuck somewhere in his throat. The sensation of her fingers on his arm sends pleasant tingles on his skin.

Her tattoos are pretty in this light. Even here, among the smell of uprooted soil and cracked carapace, he senses the scent of blueblossom from her hair. He sinks his eyes to the necklace around Merrin’s neck—the sight always fills him with a warm sensation—to her lips.

For the umpteenth time in his life, Cal wishes that the ability to suppress blushes was a Jedi talent. His thoughts wander to the kiss she gave him the day she returned from Dathomir.

He thinks about that a lot. He’d like to kiss her again, but not here, surrounded by a giant, dead worm that stinks of a cracked exoskeleton.

He needs to speak with Cere about his feelings for Merrin, and their plans for the Inquisitors, soon. She’ll have advice.

Merrin stands and extends her hand; he accepts it to get up on his feet. As he puts his shirt and poncho back on, a gleam further away catches his attention.

“Hey,” he says and indicates where the worm erupted from the soil, further behind a few trees. “Look there. Is that a cave?”

Merrin tilts her head and takes a few steps closer. BD-1 whoops and runs ahead.

A curtain of leaves hides the entrance to a cavern; Cal pushes it aside to peer deeper inside. He lifts his weapon to illuminate moss-covered floors and moist walls. A dragonfly whizzes past and flutters its translucent wings against his poncho in a brittle sound.

“Let us go in,” Merrin says and enters the cavern.

“Ok, Cal replies and follows, “but with my luck, we’ll probably fall into a Gundark nest.”

Merrin smiles and surrounds herself in green vapor. “Come on. Let us explore.” She blurts out a casual “watch out for that spore sac” and sinks into invisibility.

Cal sinks his boot into a goo of sticky plant seed. A heavy scent like that of hemp spreads in the outcrop. He lets out a curse and jumps on one foot, nearly stepping on BD-1 who skips and lets out a litany in binary.

Cal soon forgets the ordeal as he passes the next ridge inside the cavern. The waters of a lake, pristine like a great emerald, spread in front of him. An aquatic plant exudes a balmy light that extends along the cavern walls like the waves of a hyper lane.

Merrin kneels and overlooks the waters from the lip of a cliff. The light billows on her face and sends ripples along with the red cloth of her robes.

Cal brushes the last of the spores from his boot and settles next to her. BD-1 scans along the surface of the lake.

Underneath, large fish with opalescent scales in faint colors of white, yellow, teal, and pink paddle through the waters as if nothing or no one could break their peace. The only sounds heard are the echoes of small droplets that run along the walls.

“Look,” Merrin says and points at a jellyfish that slowly pulses through the waters in bioluminescent light.

It’s as if they’ve fallen into an alternate universe where time has stopped. Where there is peace, and the Empire doesn’t exist.

“It’s beautiful,” Cal says softly.

Merrin reaches out and dips her fingers into the waters. A ripple of pain radiates from her Force signature along with the pattern that forms on the surface.

Cal lifts his hand to place it between her shoulder blades.

“Are you ok?”

She shies away, but it’s too late.

As soon as his hand makes contact with her robes, the image of another outcrop washes over him. It’s crafted to form a home in harmony with nature. Like the cavern they’re in, pools of water glow a soft shade of blue and thin streams pour from a source above, high enough to be shrouded in darkness. Tall stalagmites reach along phosphorescent stones lit by torches that illuminate pitches and vases, braziers, and bowls neatly placed among hearths and bed places.

They fall apart in a synced gasp, hands against the floor of the cavern. BD-1 bleeps in confusion and twists his camera eye from one to the other.

“Where was that?” Cal asks and sits straight.

“You said you could control your psychometry.” Merrin’s usually ivory skin reddens.

“Not when the memories are tied to strong emotions. At least it makes it harder.”

He relaxes at the look in her eyes, conveying embarrassment rather than anger.

“You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to,” he says, “but… the thing about keeping things inside is that it makes you believe that whatever happened was your fault. That it could have been prevented if you had been stronger."

Her tensed posture softens. She sighs.

“That was the Nightsister fortress. It is where I hid when the Sith attacked. I did not dare to return until years later.”

He nods. He’s experienced the paralyzing effect of fear.

She leans forward, her voice less pained.

“Cal, inside the old Jedi Temple on Coruscant, Vader showed me a holopic of one of my Sisters. Her name was Asajj Ventress. Back on Dathomir, before we met, I found her in the lair. She was laid in the waters.”

“By whom?”

She shakes her head with a wrinkle between her eyebrows.

“I don’t know, but it must have been someone who cared for her. She was beautiful, in peace. Coming here made me remember.”

Merrin shifts her gaze from the surface of the pool to his eyes.

“Thank you,” she says quietly. “For listening.”

“Always.”

They mirror each other’s smiles.

Cal’s attention shifts at a static in his head. BD-1 runs towards the cavern walls with excited bleeps. Buried in the moss lies a hook with three barbs; Cal extends his hand and is flooded by the visions of a Hamadryas female that used it for fishing. The memory radiates peace.

Merrin joins him with a question written on her face. He holds the hook in its line with a grin.

“How about we give Greez something else to cook but Scazz?”

She smirks.

“Alright, Jedi. Let us see who catches the first fish.”

* * *

Ten minutes later, Cal and Merrin leave the cavern with a fish, long enough to reach her derriere, thrown over her shoulder. Its scales glisten in the faded sunlight.

BD-1 beeps in admiration.

“Ok, you won,” Cal says.

“Nightsisters use techniques of illusion. Concealment charms are good when you want to surprise your prey.”

“Or when you want to hide your friends from the Empire.”

Merrin glints a teasing smile.

“Don’t worry, you did well. For a Jedi.”

He laughs. A rush of gratitude soars through him; for her dry sense of humor, for not being alone. He takes her hand.

“I’m glad you came back.”

She blinks down at their intertwined fingers. Her face softens in a genuine smile.

The comlink on Cal’s wrist buzzes; they flinch.

“Hey, guys!” Greez voice fades out and returns. “You ok? Kid number two here tells me you fought some ugly worm.”

“We’re good, Greez.” Cal smiles into the comm. “We’ll be right there.”

* * *

Inside the galley, Merrin and Cal are met by the scent of fresh caf from the kitchenette. Greez rubs his hands together at the sight of the fish and takes it to the lower deck to prepare it for dinner.

Iris is settled by the sofa with a Jun-seed pancake on a plate in her lap. Cal joins her with a cup in hand and tells her of how they fought the worm. BD-1 bleeps a greeting; when Iris reacts with a silent stare, he sinks his camera eye to the floor.

“So!” Greez says when he returns, accompanied by a faint scent of fish, “do you guys remember that place I told you about—the castle on Takodana where they make the best rancor steak in the Galaxy? We should go there!”

Iris blinks up at him, her eyes eager.

“A castle?”

“Yeah! You’ll love it, kid!”

Greez glances at Merrin and scratches a sideburn.

“Eh… Rancors aren’t holy in your culture, or anything?”

“No,” Merrin says and fills a cup with caf. “We keep them as cattle. Raw rancor eyes are considered a delicacy on Dathomir.”

Greez pales.

“Really?”

Merrin takes a step towards the sofas and ruffles the strands on his head.

“I told you to not be so serious.”

Cal snorts into his cup. BD-1 ejects a whistle.

“Hey!” Greez lifts his hands, “what have I told you about ruining the Potolli-weave!”

Cal wipes the table and clears his throat.

“Greez, we want to talk to you about something. We’re—”

“What, dating? You kind of made that obvious when you started swapping spit after you yanked her into the ship mid-space!”

Cal’s face burns. Iris shifts a look from Cal to Merrin with a poorly withheld giggle behind her hand.

“I—it’s not that—” Cal snaps out of his embarrassment with a clench to his jaw. “Look, we can’t hide from the Empire forever. Instead of fleeing the Inquisitors until they find us, I’d like to reverse the hunt. I want to find them. I want to turn them back to the light.”

Greez stares at him, mouth agape like the fish they caught in the cavern.

“You—you’re crazy, kid. Tell me you’re joking.”

“I’m not. I’m tired of fleeing. I know we can do this—with the right methods.”

“And what would those be?” Greez’s voice raises to a shrill note. “Warm hugs and pats on the back? They’re murderers, Cal! You can’t be serious!”

Cal glances at Iris, whose complexion has turned grey.

“Didn’t you say the man with the dark helmet, the one who wanted to make me into a slave—that he was an Inquisitor?”

Cal nods.

“And you want to help him?”

“Iris, I know how it must sound…”

Iris rises and leaves for the back of the ship. The door to Cere’s old cot slams close.

Cal lets out a heavy sigh. Taking in Iris had complicated things, but he was sure of what he wanted. _Avenge us_ , Trilla said before she died. He would.

Greez shakes his head.

“The girl’s got a point, Cal. Plus, you’re going to get yourself killed.”

Merrin places her cup on the table.

“Ask Cere. She will know what to do.”

Greez points at her with two index fingers.

“You’re in on this? One would think you’d have more care for your boyfriend!”

Merrin blinks as if she just realized the meaning of that concept but quickly returns to her regular, neutral expression.

“I agree that it is a dangerous path…” She swallows. “But I trust Cal.”

Greez stares at them, back and forth, until BD-1 lets out a whistle in anticipation.

“In that case,” Greez says with a sigh, “we’re going to Takodana. Cere might be an awesome Jedi, but if you want help, you need to see Maz Kanata.”

“Maz Kanata?”

“Yeah,” Greez replies to Cal’s question. “Maz’s castle is known to be a haven for people on the run—you know, people like us. The whole planet is famous for its neutrality in galactic politics. And Maz… Well, she’s no friend of the Empire. ”

Cal leans forward in interest.

“How can she help us?”

“Maz’s been around for a long time.” Greez lifts the corner of his mouth in a crooked smile. “She’s got long arms—a lot of connections, that is—” he adds to Merrin’s confused frown. “She can direct us to people with information on where to strike at the Empire—for a fee.“

Cal lifts an eyebrow.

“This place on Takodana... Is it known for gambling?”

Greez huffs, his complexion pink.

“Nah! I mean—yeah, a little, but that’s not why I want us to go there!” He raises all four palms. “I promise on my great-grandmother’s grave.”

He points at Merrin and Cal with a squint.

“On second thought—what’s wrong with wanting a bit of fun? Especially after the ordeal on Coruscant? I deserve a Parkellan Sling!”

Merrin and Cal say nothing, perturbed by the gravity in Greez voice.

“You’re right.” Cal says, “Takodana sounds good.”

Greez softens.

“I mean, I’m just glad you made it out of there alive… Except for the furball. I can’t believe how much I miss her… The little shit spreader.”

His mumbled words fill the silent room. The Mantis crew are lost in thoughts of their bogling friend who sacrificed her life for theirs.

Greez straightens and turns for the cockpit.

“I’m going to set the coordinates for Maz’s castle. We should arrive in about two standard days.”

* * *

Cal carefully approaches the door to Cere’s old bunk. The sound of a muffled sob reaches his ears.

“I’m sorry, buddy,” he whispers to BD-1 on the floor behind him, “I think it’s best if I go in alone.”

The little droid leaves with a low “bo-beep.”

“Iris?” Cal taps the door. “Can I come in?”

No answer. He opens the door slowly.

Iris is on her stomach, her face buried in the ring of her arms. She lifts her face, red from tears.

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” she says in a wet voice.

Cal’s heart cramps. He expected her to scald him for his plans for the Inquisitors, not to blame herself for the situation they were in.

Iris was younger than he was when the clones turned their weapons on him and started a chain of events that left him alone in the Universe. What has this girl been through?

“None of this is your fault. You were born attuned to the Force; it’s not something you chose. You can’t help that some people want to use it for their gain.”

“Ugh, I don’t want to hear about the stupid Force.” She plants her face in her arms again.

Once again, Cal stumbles at the blatant rejection of what he was taught to revere.

“I, uh… ok. We’re going to Takodana. From there, we can figure something out, ok?”

She raises her head again, wide-eyed, and sits. For the first time since they met, she smiles.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Really.”


	4. Takodana

The Mantis sweeps through the atmosphere of Takodana before lush forestscape dotted with the silvery glare of scattered lakes. Takodana castle protrudes like a great fang by the shore of the biggest lake, its towers colored by the sun in a tangerine gleam.

“Looks like we’ll have to land a bit off,” Greez gruffs at the sight of the small spaceport by the castle, full to the brim with ships. He waves at BD-1 perched on the panels before him. “Get outta the way!”

BD-1 chatters and hops onto Cal’s lap in the jump seat.

They land with less finesse than usual, which Greez blames on his insatiable thirst for a drink and his hunger for Rancor steak. He opens the door by the galley to let the Takodana air in and heaves his chest in an ‘aah.’

Iris bounces out of the ship. She smiles at a flock of birds that serenade from a nearby treetop.

“The radio signal is good here,” Cal says to Greez and Merrin by the holo table. “I’m going to try to get in contact with Cere. You can go ahead if you want.”

Merrin senses his need for privacy and leaves for the door.

“We will wait for you outside.”

Cal nods in a grateful smile and flips a switch to encrypt their signal.

Merrin descends the jetty and peers around for Iris. Satisfied to see the girl kneel by the edge of the lake, she plants her boots on the grass and gazes up on the roof of the greenery above. Takodana reminds her of Kashyyyk, yet not; this planet lacks the humid pressure and chaotic energies of the jungle planet.

“Hey, Merrin?” Greez says. He lifts his thumb over his shoulder to the slate surface of the lake and the castle exterior. “Mind if I go ahead? It looks like there’s a crowd, and I wanna be sure we get a table.”

“Do you mean a table for the card game?”

Greez grey complexion deepens. He huffs.

“I’m a law-abiding man these days! No gambling!”

He leaves for the castle in little skips and whistles in tune with the tweets of the birds.

Unable to contain a smile, Merrin joins Iris by the water and senses the planet’s character.

Takodana’s energies flow in gentle waves that allow a plethora of life forms. Merrin follows the root system of a tree and sparks life in a fern that rolls from its confinement in a seed. She teases the pelt of a rodent-like creature and follows the flight of a tiny lizard.

She lets go of the planet’s aura and redirects her attention to Iris, who reaches out to catch a blue butterfly in her hands.

Merrin draws in a deep breath. Like Bogano, Takodana is an oasis of relative peace in a Galaxy in chaos.

* * *

Cal’s face lit up in a smile when Cere’s holo image appears in a cyan flicker.

“Cal.” Cere smiles in that controlled, heavy-lidded fashion he’s come to love. “BD-1.”

The droid beeps in greeting.

“Cere! How are things on Kashyyyk?”

“Chaotic, I’m afraid. The Empire sent an armada of troops in retaliation after Ashmead's lock. They’ve retaken the prison and the refinery. Still, we managed to blow up most of the remaining parts—it’ll take them years to build it to its former capacity.”

“Where are you?”

“Deep in the Shadowlands. You would not believe the creatures we’ve encountered. Some are rare even to the Wookiees.”

“Thanks, I met a few of them on my way up the Origin Tree.”

“The slugs with horns? Or the giant spiders?”

“Those, yeah.”

Cal and Cere chuckle in unison.

“How are you?”

Cal affirms that they are well and tells Cere of Iris. She nods with a wrinkle between her eyebrows.

“A Force-sensitive child… Has she told you where she’s from?”

“No. She’s asked us to take her to the core worlds.”

“Risky. Where are you now?”

“Greez has taken us to Takodana for a night.”

“Takodana? He better keep away from the Hasard table.”

“Yeah, that’s what I told him.”

Cal and Cere mirror each other’s smiles. He braces himself to tell her of his plan for the Inquisitors with a rush of nervousness in his guts

“Cere.” Cal swallows. “I need to talk to you about something else. In the fortress on Nur, when you spoke to Trilla—she turned. I know you felt it.”

Cere’s features turn grief-stricken.

“Of course I did. Before Vader killed her.”

“What if it means that the other Inquisitors can turn, too? What if we can help them?”

Cere stares at him, stunned.

“Cal, no. Do not underestimate the power of the dark side.”

Cal grips the sides of the holo table and clenches his jaw.

“I won’t hide. And I won’t kill them, not anymore. I don’t see any other way. I need your help.”

Cere remains silent for several heartbeats. Cal doesn’t break the silence but allows her to come to a decision.

“You wish to tread a dangerous path,” she says with a sigh. “But I will help you if you believe I can. Come to Kashyyyk. First, we need to speak about what to do with the child you have found.”

Cal smiles, light in the chest. Since Master Tapal died, Cere is the closest he’s had to a Jedi Master. He’d be lost without her.

His mind bounces at her next question.

“How is Merrin?”

A warmth creeps up Cal’s neck. He groans silently at how his blush must be evident even in holo form.

“She’s good.”

“Cal,” Cere says cautiously, “have you considered that _you_ are the reason she returned from Dathomir?”

“Yeah, that’s what she said. She came back to fight the Empire with me.”

Cere’s eyelids go heavier in an expression of impatience.

“That’s not what I meant.”

Cal closes his mouth in a silent debate on how to respond. He could claim that Merrin’s return meant precisely that—to fight together. That he and Merrin shared important experiences, and therefore, they both valued their friendship.

It wouldn’t be the whole truth.

Cere’s question has an undernote that mirrors the thoughts he had a few days earlier on the planet where he and Merrin defeated the worm. He glances towards the open door of the Mantis.

Cal has no wish to lie to Cere.

“I don’t mind it,” he says and pauses with a feeling of taking a leap into unknown territory. “Whatever reason she had to return, I’m glad she did.”

Cere nods in return, her gaze steadfast and open.

“Look,” she says, “all I’ve learned about the Nightsisters is that their use of the Force is dark because it's selfish. They are known to be manipulative, to never care for anyone but themselves. When Merrin joined the crew, she did it for a chance to take a path of vengeance. I'm glad to hear that she rejoined you with a less self-centered goal in mind.”

Cal doesn’t reply. He’s unsure if Cere speaks about the promise Merrin made to fight the Empire, or the other, unspoken reason why she returned.

“Just remember, “Cere continues, “to never let your emotions cloud your judgment. The Order forbade attachment for a reason.”.

“Does it have to be against the Jedi way?” A rush of desperation warms Cal’s cheeks. “Think of Bastila Shan and Revan, they—”

“Shan and Revan lived over two millennia ago. Their story may seem romantic, but remember that both fell to the dark. In the end, they lost each other. Attachment leads to fear of loss, Cal. It is a path to suffering.”

Cal goes hot and cold. His find on Dantooine—Bastila Shan’s holodiary that told of her love for Revan and their defiance of the Jedi Order—made him rethink the Jedi code and open up to his feelings for Merrin. Under Cere’s concerned gaze, that shift in perspective seems rash and childish. He’s torn. A surge of shame grips his heart, and yet there’s a voice inside him that refuses to acknowledge that love could be wrong.

He nods with a strange weight to his heart. BD-1 coos.

* * *

Cal joins Merrin and Iris outside the ship. A jolt of worry lands in Merrin’s gut at Cal’s somber expression. She asks if Cere is ok. He nods, and they leave for the castle.

The battlements cast long shadows over the field, and two trapezoids loom over the gatehouse to the castle entrance. Squalling gulls hover above, nipping for small lizards that perch inside the arrow loops. The gravel of the bailey crunches underneath their boots.

“This place is so wizard!” Iris squeaks and skips in eagerness. BD-1 scans a tuft of grass with equal zeal.

“The Force shifts around the castle,” Cal says. ”Can you feel it?”

Merrin nods. She senses vibration in her veins. Cal halts and squats to hold out his hand above the ground with a frown.

“There was a battle here, once.”

“Hey, come on!” Iris waves from the entrance. BD-1 whistles.

They look up at the ramparts where various banners and flags paint the castle in kaleidoscopic colors. A tall statue of a woman extending her arms to the sky looms in the center of the grounds.

“I believe that is our host,” Cal says.

Above the arched door frame, a sign with the words _All are welcome. (No fighting)_ in Galactic basic carved into the wood rattles in gusts of wind.

A large Mirialan with a net of triangles tattooed on his face opens the gates and the muffled sounds of music and laughter bursts from within the castle. The crew passes the man and enters the warm halls. The room is lit by lanterns with flames that flicker in the din of conversation and burly laughter.

Merrin keeps her face impassive and observes the clientele on the sly. The room is filled with people in all shapes and sizes. Some have furred bodies, others are dressed in leather or draped in intricate cloth. Some have horns, others tentacles or hair. All engage in lustful activities of games, conversation, or enjoying a meal and a drink.

From Cal’s shoulders, BD-1 scans the robes of a female Zygerrian who flashes her fangs at him in a hiss. The droid hides behind Cal’s head with a shriek.

Iris sweeps her gaze around in awe. People send her side-glances that tell Merrin children might not be welcome in the establishment.

They pass a small stage where a band plays a popular Jizz tune. Merrin and Iris follow Cal who courses through the crowd with mild persistence.

Under his leather vest, strapped to his torso by a bandolier, he wears a new shirt with rolled-up sleeves that reveals the freckles on his underarms. Merrin’s heartbeat quickens when the blaze from an open fire sends a gleam in his hair. 

Despite his lack of horns and tattoos, Cal is pleasing to look at.

She frowns at a shiver of frustration that radiates from his Force signature. He has been on edge since he spoke to Cere.

Cere must have protested his plan for the Inquisitors, perhaps attempted to talk him out of the idea.

A part of Merrin wishes Cere succeeded.

They pass the kitchens. A large Human in a white hat shouts orders to his employees and accepts a note from a tall Nautolan waitress. A mouth-watering scent of herbs and spices rises from the pots.

Cal places a hand on Iris’s shoulder and nods towards an area further into the hall. Greez stands by a rectangular table where people toss colored cubes and mouth at tankards filled with frothing drinks.

“Hey!” Greez notices them and waves both right hands, “I was just looking for you! I got us a table; it’s over there.”

He leads them towards the dinette area, passes two men who play a game over a grid square, and arrives to sit at a round table with chairs in red synth-hide. As they take their seats, a bronze droid approaches with a clink to her joints. BD-1 whistles.

“I regret to inform you that children are not allowed in the venue,” she says in monotonous basic. Iris shrinks in her chair.

“Aw, come on, Emmie,” Greez says. “She’s my, uh, my second cousin’s daughter! She’s been nagging me to go to Maz’ ever since she was in diapers—make an exception, will you?”

Greez jumps when a small, orange hand lands on his shoulder.

“Greez Dritus! I knew it wouldn’t take long until I got to see those bushy sideburns of yours in my castle again.”

With a grin, Greez shakes the hand of a petite woman whose skin is wrinkled like the bark of a Wroshyyyr tree. Two round monocles fastened to a leather cap magnifies her eyes, sunken into her skull. He introduces her as Maz Kanata, the proprietor of the castle.

Maz lifts the glass lenses from her eyes and scrutinizes Cal, Merrin, and Iris until they squirm on their seats.

“You have interesting company,” she says to Greez, who twitches and introduces his crew. BD-1 emits a beep and a blop.

“Welcome, BD-1,” Maz says with a smile, “and Iris, Cal Kestis, and Merrin of Dathomir.”

She repositions the glasses from her head to her eyes.

“I suppose you are in trouble since you’ve decided to visit, Greez. Don’t tell me; I already know. The Haxion brood thugs were here a few weeks ago asking for your whereabouts.”

“Actually,” Greez peers around to avoid eavesdroppers, “we’re looking for help with a different issue. A very delicate issue.”

Maz nods and gestures to Emmie. The droid turns to her with a squeak to her joints.

“Keep this table for our guests. We’ll be right back.”

Maz glances over her shoulder to encourage them to join her towards a large set of stairs opposite the scene. They follow her through the crowd that part in respect; she waves any attempt from the guests to strike a conversation with her away with a smile.

The stairs wind around a center column, its stone walls illuminated by lit candles and adorned with paintings. Down a corridor to the left of the base of the stairs, Maz opens a large metal door with a datapad that leads to another wooden door. She opens it and ushers them inside.

The room is built inside the tower of the keep. Its blood-red walls are covered in various bookshelves that contain tomes and curious objects; a miniature sand dragon, a statue of a man, and something that looks like a triangle Holocron. A flask filled with sticks on Maz’s desk sends whiffs of herbal aromas into the room.

Iris lets out an awed ‘wow.’ BD-1 jumps from Cal’s shoulders. He rushes to a coffer and scans it with a whirr.

“Be my guest,” Maz says and takes a seat by the desk, large enough to dwarf her. “But don’t peek inside. I keep private things in there.”

BD-1 bleeps in embarrassment. Maz chuckles.

“These objects,” Cal says and sweeps his gaze along the bookshelves. “They are connected to the Force.”

Maz leans her scrawny arms against the veneer of the desk and interlaces her hands.

“I didn’t need proof that you are a Jedi, but there it is. Many of these objects used to belong to Jedi. Some are ancient, and some, unfortunately, are more recent.”

She gestures to a couple of chairs.

“Sit, my friends. Tell me everything.”

* * *

The fourth brother flips a switch by his pilot’s seat and kills the white noise that helps him through the more intense periods of migraines. He’s left the hyper lane to hover his shuttle in the Expansion Regions and awaits news from the pirates he’s paid to find the girl.

The skin on his neck prickles with irritation. They were supposed to contact him an hour ago.

A static emits from his com system. He flips another switch with an impatient move and leans back into his seat, eye twitching.

“Yes?”

“We’re in the Corbett cluster. Someone’s spotted a girl walk into the castle on Takodana that fits the description you gave.”

“Takodana,” the fourth brother rumbles through the visor of his helmet. “The planet is neutral. I can’t land with an Imperial shuttle.”

“We’ll get you the girl and make the trade somewhere else, but it’ll cost you double.”

The fourth brother clenches his gloved fist to damper his impulse to destroy the comm into splinters with a blast of the Force.

 _Kriffing pirates._ He would kill them once he has the subject. He’ll hunt down the Jedi and his Nightsister next.

“I should reach Corbett in eight standard hours. Be ready when I call.”

“Yep,” is all the pirate says before he kills the transmission.

* * *

Maz opens a small container shaped like a Bantha on her desk and pulls out a stick of rolled paper. She places it between her lips and lights it. The white smoke spreads a scent of droid oil and basil.

“So,” she says after Cal and Greez have told her the story of the search for the Holocron, the events that led them to find Iris, and of Cal’s plans for the Inquisitors. “You decided against rebuilding the Jedi Order. Instead, you wish to tear down the Inquisitorial Order by turning them back to the light.”

She sends Cal a warm smile. Her voice is filled with a mix of incredulity and compassion.

“That won’t be easy, young Jedi. Don’t underestimate the power of the dark side.”

“I’ve heard that one before,” Cal says with an unhappy look on his face.

Maz adjusts one of her lenses and leans back into her chair.

“The fall to the dark is easy. Give in to guilt, hatred, or lust for power. Or, give someone what they crave… and take it from them. How would you reverse such pain in someone you don’t know?”

Cal senses Iris’s hard stare.

“Perhaps by believing in them—that it’s not too late.” Cal frowns, his jaw set in a pout. “I refuse to believe it’s too late for any of them. Just like I believe that Cere won’t fall again.”

“Cere is Cal’s mentor,” Greez says.

Maz taps her cigarra into a round plate. The ashes glow before they disintegrate into dust.

“You base your quest on hope, not knowledge. Some would say this is foolish”—she glints a smile at Iris—“but I give you this advice: trust your feelings. Only when a person desires power for power’s sake are they lost.”

She rises from her seat to sit on her desk and faces Merrin.

“You carry the darkness, do you not, Nightsister? The darkness does not carry you.”

Taken aback by the shift of attention to Merrin, the Mantis crew exchange glances. Merrin meets Maz gaze without a blink.

“I was not taught to understand the Force. The difference between dark and light has no meaning to me.”

Maz nods. She wrinkles her face in a thoughtful expression.

“Tell me, what do you know of the history of your legacy?”

A spark of resentment rises in Merrin. What does this woman want?

“A man once asked me that. He desired the secrets of our magick. I killed him.”

Iris’ eyes threaten to pop out of their sockets. Greez lets out an awkward cough.

Unfazed by her words, Maz chuckles.

“Isolation and lies are the foundation of tyranny. Seek the truth. Take this.”

She places a data card into Merrin's hand.

“What is it?”

“That will reveal itself, soon. Now you“—Maz turns to Iris who stiffens in her chair—“will do best to stay with me for the night. I don’t allow children in the establishment, but I will make sure you have food and a nice place to sleep.”

Iris nods, wide-eyed.

“Can I look at your things?”

“Of course! I will tell you all about them.”

BD-1 jumps in front of Maz in a binary chatter.

“You want to stay too, little droid?” Maz smiles. “What do you say, Iris?”

Iris tenses her lips to a line.

“Ok, I guess…”

“Are you sure?” Cal asks BD-1 who replies with a “bo-beep!”

Maz waves at the Mantis crew.

“I will take good care of them. Go, and enjoy the evening. I will bring the girl and the droid to you in the morning.”

“Well!” Greez says and scratches his sideburn, “I guess this means you won’t join us later for a Parkellan Sling?”

Maz laughs.

“You know I never drink with guests. But I’ll make sure Emmie gets you anything you need.”

She uncrosses her arms to place a hand on Iris' shoulders. Their heights match.

“Take this opportunity to rest, and enjoy yourselves. In these times, those things are hard to come by.”

* * *

Back in the halls, the crew enjoys a juicy rancor steak followed by a blue pudding dessert. During dinner, Cal tells them Cere has agreed to join them in their quest. They don’t wish to make plans for Iris without her consent and postpone that conversation for later.

Greez suggests an alternative if things go haywire: ask Mari to help them get in contact with Saw Gerrera. Cal says he’ll think about it.

Merrin’s attention drifts from the conversation as her head buzzes from the thick air and noisy din of the hall.

“I need some air,” she says. Cal offers to come with her.

“Don’t get lost, love birds!” Greez says and gestures to a drink-dispenser droid.

Cal and Merrin step out into the night. Insects chirp and hover in rotating patterns over their heads. A whoosh reaches them from the nearby hangar where a small ship lifts towards the starry night with its cyan lights disappearing into space.

Cal leans the back of his head against the wall with a sigh. Merrin glances at him. He must think of Greez’ suggestion to contact Saw.

“Is Saw Gerrera the man who sabotaged the refinery on Kashyyyk?” Merrin asks.

“Yeah.” Cal whisks at the buzz of an insect. “He asked me to join his partisans when I was searching for Tarfful. I didn’t take the offer since I was out to find the Holocron.”

“Is he not an enemy of the Empire?”

“Yeah, he is, It’s just…” Cal sighs. “Saw left the partisans on Kashyyyk when he deemed the cause was lost even though the Wookies were still enslaved. His struggle against the Empire is admirable but... I don’t know about some of his tactics.”

Merrin stays silent. It was Cal’s decision. If he wanted to find Saw, she would go with him, if not, they’d find another way.

“This place is pretty great,” Cal says and lifts his gaze to the various flags and banners that flap above their heads. “Do you think Iris and BD-1 are ok?”

Merrin nods and leans against the wall beside him. The taste of the alcoholic draught they had before rests on her tongue.

“So.” Cal raises an eyebrow. “Maz. She’s Force sensitive.”

“Definitely Force sensitive.”

“I wonder how she’s managed to stay clear of the Empire’s attention?”

Merrin glances towards the ports of the castle.

“Probably with the help of some of her clientele.” She shifts her gaze back to Cal. “That card she gave me. What do you think it is?”

“I have no idea. But I think we can trust her. Are you feeling better?”

She nods.

“Let us go inside again.”

They re-enter the castle and try their best to pass the crowded room without bumping into anyone. At a burst of hoarse laughter, Cal turns. By a table under one of the windows sits a man in a helmet with four lights. He chats a repertoire of Huttese interrupted by occasional guffaws.

Wide-eyed, Cal leans in to whisper in Merrin’s ear.

“That’s the guy from the Haxion brood prison on Ordo Eris! He’s managed to escape!”

She surveys the nonsensical man in the helmet with a mix of amusement and hesitation.

With a last glance at the escaped prisoner, they make their way to the table where they find Greez in conversation with a Human who does his best to cajole Greez to join him at the card table.

“Sorry!” Greez says and lights up in a smile when Cal and Merrin arrive. “These kids look up to me!” He turns to his crew which prompts the man to scurry off in a mutter.

“Did you gamble back on Dathomir?” Greez asks Merrin after another swig from his tankard. “Any card games, board games, like that?”

“No,” she says and blinks when a woman in dark garments bumps into her chair with a squeal, “gambling was against the Mother’s will. But we did have games. I used to play a type of strategy game with rocks called ‘Plecho’ with my sisters...”

Merrin falls silent, overwhelmed by memories of time spent with the other girls in her coven. Before everything fell apart, she had games, laughter, songs, and companionship—then, nothing.

Cal sends her a soft gaze. Greeze clears his throat.

“You ok? I’m sorry if I brought up painful memories.”

Merrin returns to the present with an unfamiliar sensation in her chest. These two men care for her. They are her new clan.

A lump forms in her throat.

“That cube game,” she says to change the subject and peers over her shoulder, “is that Sabacc?”

“No!” Greez says in a laugh, “Sabacc is a card game! That’s Hasard. The one with the spinny ball? That’s called the Tournet.” He huffs. “Those are luck-based games. Sabacc depends on skill!”

“It’s totally about luck, though,” Cal says with a lopsided smile.

Greez leans forwards with a ‘hah!’ and starts a litany on why skill is the only determinator in a sabacc game. Merrin excuses herself and rises to make her way through the people towards the Hasard table.

“Hey, wait for me!” Cal jumps from his chair to go after her. Greez gapes before he smacks his empty glass on the table and joins his crew.

* * *

An hour later, Greez beams at Merrin like she were a star fallen to the ground. She returns to the table with a bulge in her pouch from a stack of chips tradeable for credits. The band by the end of the room has upped the tempo of the Jizz tunes and a crowd dances in front of the stage in a flail of arms, tails, and tentacles. Mist gathers on the surface of the glass windows.

“That was amazing!” Greez says, his eyes full of astonishment. “It was like you could read the mind of the chance cube!” He leans forward and casts a gaze around. “Did you use your magick?”

“I use my magick to conceal, not to reveal things,” she says, face neutral. She allows Greeze to take the stack of credits to count them.

The smile in her eyes wanes under the weight of Cal’s gaze.

“Did you use the Force?” he says, low.

All the amusement and satisfaction she felt as she won the credits by the Hasard table dissipates.

“Once.”

He shakes her head. Her heart sinks at the disappointment in his eyes.

“It’s not right, Merrin.”

She takes a step closer and whispers.

“Why is it wrong when we need the credits?”

“Because the Force shouldn’t be used for selfish gains.”

She waits for a pair of Natuloans to pass out of hearing range.

“I didn’t do it for myself. I did it for us—for our crew.”

Cal lifts a hand to her arm.

“I know. And I also know that you understand my perspective.”

She closes her mouth and frowns. His perspective—the Jedi way. It did make sense, which is why her face warms in humiliation. She didn’t regret the impulse to manipulate the chance cube to her favor—or did she?

Mother, her life had turned complicated since she met Cal.

Greez, who has turned in the chips for credits, returns with Maz’ bronze guard droid. She halts with a clink.

“My mistress would like to inform you,” she says in her metallic tone, “that your child companion is doing well and is currently asleep. Your rooms are ready if you wish to inspect them.”

Cal shrugs.

“Why not? I’m getting a bit drowsy. What do you guys say?”

Merrin nods. Her head swims from the noise and her lids burn.

“Weaklings!” Greez says and grins at a drink dispenser droid who passes his side, “I’m staying. Hello there, can I get a Tsiraki, please?”

The droid buzzes and pours him a blue drink in a v-shaped glass.

“Ok,” Cal says and stretches a hand towards Greez, “but we’re taking the credits.”

Greez stares at him in shock before he grumbles and reaches into his pocket.

“At least let me have enough for another drink, ok? By the blazes…”

He pays for the drink and hands the chip card over to Cal with a glare.

“Follow me,” Emmie says and motions towards the staircase that leads to the upper floors of the castle. Merrin slides her hand along the polished rail and lets her gaze roam the objects displayed in nooks and gun loops; small statues of various races, holos and real, and gold-framed paintings of people she doesn’t know the names of.

“Look,” Cal says and nods to a painting of a dark-haired woman in ceremonial make-up and white attire. She holds a blue-feathered bird in her hand. “That’s the former queen of Naboo. She united the people of her planet and repelled the droid army invasion by the trade federation. The Jedi helped her.”

Merrin stops flat.

“I recognize that woman... “ She shakes her head. “But that is impossible.”

“She became a senator for the Republic after the siege. I heard she died around the time when the Clone Wars ended.”

Merrin glances a last time at the painting. She must have been mistaken. From above, the droid calls for them to follow. They hurry up the flight of the stairs, through a corridor dressed in a tapestry that pictures an embroidered battle scene, and arrive at a wing with doors scattered along the hall.

In contrast to the stuffed air below, the temperature is cool and pleasant. The noise from the hall reaches them in a murmur.

Emmie halts by a heavy wooden door.

“This is the room for mister Dritus.”

She takes a few steps to the next door and faces them both.

“This is your room.”

Merrin expects the droid to show her the whereabouts of her room when it dawns on her. This _is_ her room—and Cal’s.

Judging from his blush, Cal has also grasped the situation.

“Are we—did we get the same room?”

“The mistress instructed for one single and one double room,” Emmie says monotonously, “If there has been a mistake, you must speak to her. There are, however, no more rooms in the castle available. Busy night. Very busy night.”

With that, Emmie leaves, as if a flustered Human was the least of her concerns. Her bronze frame rounds the corner and disappears.

“I can go back to the Mantis,” Cal says and rubs the back of his neck.

Merrin allows a heartbeat of hesitation flow between them before she replies.

“No, you can stay.”

She checks the small laugh that tickles her insides at the sight of his flushed face. By the Mother, what was so terrible about sleeping in the same room? Merrin grasps the handle of the heavy door with a creak and they step into a room covered in a plush wallpaper, red like blood. A fire crackles in the hearth and heavy draperies hide parts of the windows and the star-dotted sky outside.

By the furthest wall is a bed with a massive frame and round posters.

Merrin controls her expression despite the way her pulse rises. The bed is wide enough for them both. It is ok, since—

Since Cal is about to transform into a Human tomato.

“The bed is big enough for both of us,” she says. “We will sleep. Nothing else.”

“Merrin,” he exhales, “I know that, since you came back—I mean…”

She stops his nervous ramble with a motion to her hand.

Merrin is not an idiot. Cere has agreed to join the crew again to help Cal with his plan to turn the Inquisitors, which means his previous sulkiness had nothing to do with his Jedi mentor opposing his plans. Whatever they exchanged between them during their talk has left Cal cautious and tensed.

Cal must have told Cere about their kiss, or, perhaps the old Jedi was intuitive.

Merrin doesn’t blame Cal for his hesitation; after all, a Nightsister falling for a Jedi should be absurd, unthinkable. Merrin is still shocked by the sensation of rightness that overwhelms her whenever Cal is near.

Emotion and attachment don’t have to be against the Jedi way, Cal said when Merrin returned from Dathomir but his feelings, if they resemble hers, are newfound and trembling like a Veeka chick. She doesn’t wish to speak what happens between them out loud, not yet, for the risk of breaking it. It is so fragile.

She steps further into the room. When she reaches the bed, she grazes the silk of the cover, ruby like the walls. The pillows are covered in a cloth adorned with embroidered petals.

She sits and marvels at the softness of the mattress.

Cal joins her and bounces.

“This is something else than the bunks on the Mantis.”

“Or the weaved mats on Dathomir.”

Her smile dies at a forbidden thought.

Did the Mother know of Nabooan art, of Takodana food, of everything different and interesting Merrin has experienced since she left Dathomir? Was it necessary to make the Nightsisters recluses in the Galaxy?

What was it Maz Kanata said? Isolation and lies are the foundation of tyranny?

Cal must sense her thoughts because he asks her to tell him something of her life before they met—before her Sisters died.

“Like what?” She asks, surprised.

“Anything. A memory.”

Merrin turns her gaze inwards and debates what to share. A memory surfaces in her mind, one she’s not proud of, but it’s what occurs to her at the moment.

“Ok,” she says and tells him the story of how, when she was Iris’s age, she snuck into the Mother’s home and stole a jar of figs in honey.

“I knew it was wrong, but I could not stop myself. I ate until the jar was empty.”

Merrin’s cheeks heat.

“I lay awake all night from the stomach cramps. My Sisters laughed at me. To this day, I cannot stand the taste of honey.”

Cal laughs; a soft sound of equal compassion and mirth. His reaction provokes laughter rising in her guts.

“That reminds me of something,” he says. “Back when I was a Padawan on the Albedo Brave, someone spread a rumor that the cook had a stack of chocolate, and—do you know what that is?”

Merrin shakes her head.

“It’s a type of sweet that’s super rare. Anyway, I managed to convince one of the clones to help me and we snuck into the kitchens.” Cal grins. “I just wanted to see what chocolate was! I promise! So, I climbed the shelves of the larder. They broke and I fell to the floor, covered in flour and portions of rations.”

Merrin hides her amusement behind her hand. Cal’s shoulders shake from laughter.

“Master Tapal gave me a serious lecture on morals and banned me from the kitchen for the rest of the war.”

“Did you steal from the larder again?”

“No.”

“I guess we both learned our lessons.”

“Yeah.” He snorts again. “I’m too heavy to climb shelves.”

She pushes his arm. He places a hand on the spot with a grin.

“I know, I know. What goes around comes around.”

* * *

An hour later, Merrin lays on her side on the bed and observes Cal as he sleeps. The light of the moon illuminates the freckles that spread over his face like a star map.

She hasn’t told him of her vision by the pools of ichor, of them together in the future. A burn rises in her throat from how she withholds things from him, but if the image of their children shook her to the core, how would he, a Jedi taught to abstain from attachment, react?

She can’t tell him; not yet. Like the jar of figs, it is too much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve taken inspiration from The Force Awakens in this chapter, obviously, but also added a few things to Maz’ castle because it’s fun to play with settings! 
> 
> George Lucas named a Star Wars music genre Jizz and now we all have to suffer for it.
> 
> I loved the encounter with Sootun on Ordo Eris. Such a weird guy. 
> 
> Lots of headcanons about Nightsister culture in this fic! Like their games. 
> 
> [This is the painting](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Painting) of Padmé that Cal and Merrin encounters.


	5. The Escape

Cal wakes up to a static to his mind, like the scratch of nails against stone. Scattered clouds release strings of rain in the distance outside the windows of Takodana castle, and the noise from below has gone silent.

He opens his eyes at the sensation of an unfamiliar warmth to his front. Merrin sleeps with her back pressed against his chest. The tip of his nose grazes the fine hairs on her neck and his arm rests over her midriff. The realization of how close she is sends a rush of something soft through him.

The static in his mind returns. He lifts his arm, gently not to wake her, and rises from the bed. Merrin turns on her back and lets out a sigh.

“Cal?”

“I didn’t want to wake you.”

Merrin pushes herself up on one arm. Her eyes go from sleepy to alert in a second.

“The energies—they bend.”

He nods. She feels it too.

The sound of footsteps reaches them from behind the door. With a gentle rapping, Maz Kanata steps inside with a lantern in her hand.

BD-1 rushes inside and jumps onto Cal’s lap with a beep and a whistle.

“There’s been a shift in the Force,” Maz says, her magnified gaze stern with worry. “Iris is downstairs with Emmie. Wake Greez. Go.”

A tingle of adrenaline dances in Cal’s guts. He and Merrin scramble out of the bed and join Maz out into the corridor.

They scurry into Greez’s room; he’s on his stomach, drooling a wet patch on the pillow. they urge him to wake up; he exhales startled ‘huh’ and clips his red-rimmed eyes at his crew members.

“What—go, now?” He rasps. “But we just got here! Is this some Force business that I don’t understand? I’m still tipsy, for stars’ sake.”

“Greez, trust us,” Cal says, and flings him his pants. Greez catches them in a grumble.

“You two are the punishment for my sins. Ok, ok, I’m coming.”

They hurry down the stairs into the great hall where Emmy and Iris wait by the hearth. The steamy atmosphere from before is gone; a last glowing ember crackles in the fireplace and the soft light of the dawn creeps through the windows. They greet Iris; she takes Merrin’s hand and they step outside, followed by Greez who hides a great yawn behind a hand.

The flaps of the flags and standards above the castle entrance grate at Cal’s ears. His every sense is on edge.

“Let’s go start the engines,” Greez says. “I’m guessing we’re in trouble and that means you’ll need me to get us outta here.”

“Cal.”

Cal halts at Maz’s voice. She waits by the ports. He nods at Merrin to follow Greez to the Mantis with Iris and BD-1, who lets out a beam of light through his camera eye to illuminate their path.

Enframed by the arch of the entrance, Maz reaches for him. She grabs the fabric of his pants and coaxes him to squat before her.

“I feel your struggle, young Jedi. Always remember: where would the light of the stars reside if not among darkness?”

Cal finds no words. He rises with a moment's pause before he exhales a rushed goodbye and runs towards the edge of the forest where the Mantis waits, her fin reaching for the sky.

“Take care of the girl!” Maz shouts. The light of her lantern sways in the distance.

The ramp of the ship bangs from their hasty footsteps. The engines hum when Greez pushes the handle and the propulsion sends a shiver through the grass.

A blaster bolt singes the panel of the cockpit. Iris lets out a frightened gasp.

Before them, two men, a Human and a Dowutin, fire a series of blasts at the hull of the Mantis. One of them shouts into a com link.

Greez pulls the steering handle in a controlled motion. The treetops stretch and groan from the jet streams as the Mantis whooshes from the glade and rises towards the Takodana atmosphere. Once they are in space and the planet shrinks before them, a blinking signal and an angry beep resonate from a panel.

“We’ve got company,” Greez mutters and grabs the handle by his head.

Another red flash rushes past; Merrin reaches over for the panels that show a ship that pursues them by the tail. She frowns at the sight of three fins going out of stealth mode.

“Cal,” she says, “look.”

Cal clenches his jaw at the sight of the ship that appears on the panel.

“It’s the Inquisitor.”

Iris gasps and backs into the galley, wide-eyed. BD-1 whistles in an attempt to calm her but she pays him no attention.

Greez mutters a series of curses.

“Great! We’ve got the Empire on our tail! How the hell did they find us?”

The Mantis jerks from a violent hit to her side and a groan of metal erupts from the impact. The crew staggers forward to find their balance. A holo book and a porcelain cup crashes to the floor near BD-1 who chatters in confusion.

“Hold onto your hides!” Greez shouts. He pushes the handle of the hyperspace drive. Space outside stretches to stripes, but solidifies into dots again in a drooping noise. Greez pales.

“Those guys on Takodana must’ve hit the hyperdrive cable! We need to get that fixed or we’ll be shredded cheese!”

“Give me a minute,” Cal says and rushes towards the end of the ship to descend the stairs to the lower deck, BD-1 on his shoulders. He staggers when another hit shakes the Mantis.

“Hurry, kid!” Greez shouts.

The cargo hold of the Mantis is crammed with crates covered in a waxed cloth, turbines, and a weapon cabinet. Cal rushes towards a loose cable that spits sparks and thrashes around like a live snake. The rest of the cable runs along the roof to the hyperdrive core, round and covered in quadranium steel. He frantically searches around him; BD-1 beeps and scans the floor to reveal a tossed-over toolbox.

A rush of relief courses through Cal’s chest. He reaches for the box and pulls out a wrench.

* * *

In the cockpit, Greez’ grey complexion has turned a light shade of green. His hairline gleams with sweat.

“Alright, I’ve been through worse. It’s not like that time that giant space slug nearly swallowed the ship…” He wipes at his forehead. “Hey, Merrin! How about you do some of that concealment magick of yours? We could use it right about now!”

Merrin nods and lifts her talisman from her pouch by her hip. She gathers her strength of mind and searches for the voices of her sisters but is pulled back into reality by another blast to the hull. She closes her eyes to concentrate again when Greeze exclaims a ‘whoa!’

Outside the panel, the scout ship whooshes past, makes a u-turn, and fires a series of blasts past the Mantis’ roof in high-pitched pings.

Greez snaps his gaze to Merrin.

“Any time now!”

Merrin widens her eyes in shock at the sight outside the cockpit. The grey stretch of an asteroid field nears, the rocks growing larger by the second.

“Greez!” Iris shrieks.

Greez twists and grabs the handles of the ship to steer her from the first onslaught of boulders that float past the cockpit. Merrin takes a step to stabilize her feet and lifts her palms with the Rancor talisman.

A bead of sweat rolls down her temple. Her magick doesn’t cooperate; the voices are silent.

Hands shaking, she switches to the language used for rituals and pours every morsel of her willpower into the prayer. She digs deep into space and time for the power to conceal the ship from the Empire once more…

A green web forms by the tip of the Mantis’ hull, like ink that sprawls to cover the ship's nose.

“Merrin?” Iris places a hand on her arm. Her voice is shaky. “Are you ok--”

Merrin drops the talisman to the floor. The rancor bone breaks into two pieces and rolls across the durasteel in clinks.

Iris pales. She slaps her hand over her mouth and dives to the floor in an attempt to gather the pieces.

“No—why’d you stop?” Greez yells but lifts his gaze to a blinking light above his head that hum into a red signal. The angry beep silences.

“He did it!” Greez grins. “All those years in the scrapper’s guild made the kid good with a wrench!” He steers to the right and avoids another asteroid. “Let’s hit hyperspace before that son of a kath hound hits us.”

Cal climbs up the stairs with a proud BD-1 on his shoulders and hurries into the cockpit. In a soft motion, Greez steers the ship upwards, out of the asteroid field. A last whizz of a fired blast resonates past the panel before he pulls the hyperdrive and space outside transforms into stripes of light.

* * *

Once the Mantis flies the hyperlane, and Greez has inspected the damage to the ship in upset exclamations where he wishes all Inquisitors to rot in Qasak, Cal taps the encrypted code to the partisans on Kashyyyk. Cere contacts them in holo form a few minutes later.

She nods in tensed silence when Cal tells her of how the Inquisitor found them on Takodana.

“I’m glad you managed to shake him off your backs,” she says. “The Empire must be redoubling their efforts to find us. We need a change of plan. Tarfful was planning an assault on the Thikkiiana spaceport to quell the slave trade but new battalions of troopers forced us to move back into the Shadowlands. Coming to Kashyyyk is unwise.”

“Cere,” Greez calls as he returns from the back of the ship, “ask Mari if she can get us in contact with Saw! He might be able to help the kid with his suicide plan. And fix my ship,” he adds in a mutter.

Cere nods slowly.

“It’s not a bad idea… I’ll make sure to ask her. I must go. Take care, all of you, and may the Force be with you.”

“And with you,” Cal says, ready to terminate the call.

“Cal.”

He halts. Cere’s eyes are large and heavy.

“Before I go… I’m afraid I have bad news. The Shyyyo bird is dead. The Empire sent a band of purge troopers after her, probably to avenge the Ninth sister.”

BD-1 coos in a falling note. Cal exhales in regret. A wave of pain spreads like needles over his insides.

“Thanks for telling us.”

Cere’s holo image dies in a flicker. Iris regards the Mantis crew, silent and still. The atmosphere is brittle like a soap bubble.

Cal braces against the lip of the tables and hangs his head. He aches like he’s been run through with a lightsaber.

“It’s my fault. Jedi are supposed to inspire people and be symbols of hope, but the Empire strikes harder in response wherever I go. I want to help, but I make things worse.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Greez mumbles, visibly moved. BD-lifts his little foot and pats Cal’s leg.

Merrin steps closer and places a hand on Cal’s arm.

“You do bring hope. You inspired a Nightsister to leave her planet and find her place in the Galaxy.”

He smiles at that, a sad twitch to one corner of his mouth.

“We’ll make them pay for what they’ve done.” She squeezes his arm. “I promise.”

She takes a step back and closes her eyes. A green mist swirls from her open palm as she murmurs an incantation, a prayer for a murdered friend. The swirls condensate to the shape of the Shyyyo, laying on her side, her majestic horns and snowy-white feathers intact. The image shudders as the bird lifts her head and extends her wings to reach for the sky.

BD-1 coos. Iris steps closer with eyes gleaming, unable to hide her curiosity.

“Wow,” she whispers.

Merrin stops her murmured words and opens her eyes; the mist dissipates.

“Her spirit is free.”

Cal gapes in astonishment. He has no idea how Merrin could reach the Shyyyo’s soul, but nothing should surprise him about her any longer. A lump forms in this throat.

“Thank you,” Cal says in a strangled voice.

* * *

The Mantis bobs on the Great Gran Run hyperlane towards the Western Reaches. Silence reigns in the galley except for the soft blips of the navigation system, set on autopilot. Iris has retired to her cot for a nap and Greez follows her example and snores from the pilot’s seat.

Cal carefully enters Merrin’s cot with a cup of caf. She sits on the bunk with the pieces of the broken rancor bone in her hands.

A rush of compassion courses through him at the sight. The failure to conjure her spell eats at her, he sees it in the sag of her shoulders.

He sits on the berth. BD-1 settles by his legs with a low whirr and scans the bone pieces in her hands.

“Now the Empire knows what our ship looks like,” she says. The neutral tone of her voice holds an undernote of pain.

“It’s ok. You did what you could.”

“I couldn’t protect us. My magick is waning. A Nightsister is nothing without her magick.”

He grabs the broken talisman, places it on her drawer, and takes her hands.

“When I lost my connection to the Force, I felt the same. I lost myself. But it was never really gone. Neither is your magick. Think about the song on Jakku, or how you commanded the trees to burst into Ashmead’s lock. I bet your powers are shifting, not waning.”

Cal hopes his attempt at consolation isn’t too clumsy. He doesn’t entirely grasp the Nightsisters elemental use of the Force, but his sentiment is sincere. To his relief, a hesitant light lits in Merrin’s face.

“Maybe you are right.”

Heart full, he caresses her cheek.

“Even if you did lose your powers, you wouldn’t be nothing. Not to me.”

Her lips fall open. The depth of her eyes, the softness of her skin—it makes him lightheaded. Without thinking, he carefully pulls her towards him.

Just as his lips graze hers, a voice erupts from the galley. Cal and Merrin jump from the berth. They hurry out of the cot and towards the holotable.

“Cal?”

“Mari!”

Mari’s hologram flickers and buzzes before it stabilizes. BD-1 toots at the sight of her, helmeted and blaster gun in hand. Greez raises from his pilot’s seat and pulls the bantha fur plaid from his lap.

“I’ve made contact with Saw,” Mari says. “He’s willing to meet you. I’m sending you his coordinates. Be quick; the encryption key only lasts for a minute.”

Greez returns to the cockpit and flips a switch to receive the coordinates. Once the codes are in the Mantis’s system, he pushes a datacron into a slot for encryption.

Cal twists a button of the holotable to stabilize Mari’s image.

“Are you ok?”

“Yes,” she says with a faint static to her voice. “We’re regrouping to go through with the plan to take the spaceport. After that, Cere will join you.”

“I know you still need Cere,” Cal says, “I promise that—”

“It’s ok. She will always be true to the Jedi cause.”

Mari visibly swallows. A hurt flickers in her eyes.

“Take care, all of you.”

Cal wishes Mari the same in turn and switches the hologram off.

“I guess we’re heading to wherever Saw has his base.”

Merrin smiles in a way he can’t interpret.

“What?” he asks.

“You do not notice?”

“Notice what?”

“Mari cares for Cere.”

Confused, Cal blinks at her when Greez yowls from the cockpit. Cal and Merrin enter and stare at the coordinates underneath Greez fingertip.

“Wrea? That ocean rock is surrounded by the Smuggler’s run asteroid belt! We just dodged an asteroid field, for stars' sake!”

With a mutter, he takes the pilot’s seat and squints at Merrin.

“You wouldn’t happen to know how to cure nausea? It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When it comes to travel time in Star Wars, I adhere to Pablo Hidalgo’s words: [ships travel at the speed of plot](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/114471).


	6. Wrea I - The Partisans

Like an erratic sunspot reflecting over Wrea’s great ocean, the Mantis flies towards Saw Gerrera’s headquarters located on a small island fortress. From a distance, the crew observes the partisan base, complete with a battery, barracks, and a storehouse. Tall reeds waves beside the fort and rusted tanks filled with rainwater gleam from the spit of the ocean.

Greez steers the ship’s fin into a vertical plane and releases the landing gear. Underneath, an enormous creature disappears under the surface with a snort.

“Whoa,” Iris says and stretches her neck to get a better look out of the panel, “that thing was huge!”

The ship lands beside the barracks with a soft thud and a decompressing whizz. Greez releases the control handles, marked from his clammy palms, and slumps into his seat.

“Well, that was interesting—for a living nightmare!” He wipes at his forehead, his complexion ashen. “Do we still have our engines? I swear I lost them somewhere around that gas cloud.”

Cal pats his shoulder.

“Yep, they’re still with us. Another happy landing, Greez. As always.”

Merrin and Cal share a glance when Greez doesn't reply with his usual sarcasm. Through the Smuggler’s pass, the flight was hellish, with winding passages through gas clouds and massive asteroids, thorny like skungus plants. They wouldn’t have made it without Saw’s message system to navigate them through the pass.

“Stay,” Cal says, “and rest, if you need.”

Greez rises from his slumped position.

“What I _need_ is a drink! Come on, let’s meet Saw. You too, kid—” He stops before Iris and crosses his arms. “I can’t call you kid; that’s reserved for Cal. I know! How about brat?”

Iris blushes with a pout.

“I have a name, you know.”

“What a crew!” Greez grins and opens the door from the galley to let the Wrea air in. He motions at Cal to step down the ledge first. “You know this guy best. Take the lead.”

Cal steps out of the ship in a shiver at the briny winds that tear at his poncho. Two of Saw’s men meet them by the jetty with blaster rifles in hand. One has a helmet with breathing gear on his head—it reminds Cal of the merchants on Jakku—while the other, as tall as Iris, wears a pair of goggles. The wind tousles his colorless hair.

“Follow us,” he says in a surprisingly deep voice.

They make their way towards the barracks, a rectangular tower built in stone with a thatched roof covered in reeds. A few planks nailed together houses a chained animal with bore fangs and coarse hair over a lizard-like body. The creature chews on a bone with a growl.

The tension to Cal’s shoulders ebbs away the moment they step inside the barracks. His eyes take a few seconds to adapt to the light of the room.

A section of tables and chairs rest juxtaposed to stacks of crates and weapons. By the other end of the room, a semi-circled desk functions as a combined bar and cantina where a few of Saw’s men help themselves to portions of a stew that spreads a scent of kelp. A holopic of a dancing Twi'lek squirms her body to an unheard tune on the edge of the bar.

A voice resonates from within the room.

“What the—No freeze Greez?”

A man with brick-red skin and a crown of horns strides towards the group with a grin. Greez expression shifts from surprise to joy.

“Aran!” Greez lifts all hands. “I almost didn’t recognize you! The last time we met, you hadn’t grown your horns!”

The man named Aran pats the outgrowths to his head and shakes Greez’ hand.

“We went to space academy together!” Greez says to his crew and pats the bicep of his friend with a grin. “Aran was one of the few non-Latero to get into the piloting class!”

Cal catches the spark of curiosity in Merrin’s eyes, despite her neutral face. She once told him she was shocked to learn of other Zabrak who lived scattered throughout the Galaxy, with no connection to Dathomir.

“Are you joining the partisans?” Aran asks.

“Nah,” Greez says, “my crew is here to ask Saw for help—hey, where’d Iris go?”

He swings around to find Iris by the bar. She stares at the dancing Twi'lek and pokes the holo to give her finger a blue shimmer.

At that moment, Saw Gerrera enters the room from an office by the back, flanked by a human partisan in long dreadlocks. Behind him, to the surprise of the Mantis crew, is a Human girl.

* * *

An hour later, after Saw has greeted the Mantis crew and invited them to join him for a portion of the stew served with mealbread and a locally brewed ale, Saw tells them his protegé’s name is Jyn.

“I’m training her,” he says with his droopy-eyed gaze on Cal. “She’s cunning and already good with a blaster gun. One day, she’ll be one of my top soldiers.”

“How old are you?” Cal asks the girl to steer the conversation away from the topic of child soldiers. Iris glances at her, unable to hide her curiosity.

“Seven,” Jyn says and dips her spoon into the bowl before her. Her voice is small but steadfast.

“So am I!” Iris ejects. Beside her, Greez tries to catch slippery kelp on a fork but drops the green string into his lap with a curse. Jyn giggles at the scene.

“You know how to shoot a blaster gun?” Iris asks Jyn, dazzled.

“Yeah,” Jyn replies with a grin and turns to Saw. “Can I show her?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Cal says. Iris protests with a groan.

“Don’t worry,” Saw says with a chuckle, “one of my men will oversee that they don’t shoot anyone… or themselves.”

The girls run for the doors with poorly contained titters of excitement. Cal catches the sight of a gleam by Jyn’s neck and ejects a ‘hey.’ The girl stops. She lifts her hand over her collarbones at his curious look.

Saw nods; she lowers her hand to reveal a white crystal in a string.

“That’s a kyber crystal, isn’t it?”

Jyn nods in silence, her posture guarded.

“Where did you get it?” Cal asks softly to signal he wants her no harm.

“My father gave it to me,” she says on a hushed note. She seeks Saw’s gaze for a signal that they may go. He waves his hand, and the two girls are off. The partisan with the dreadlocks hurries after them with a look of mild panic.

“Is her mother dead?” Merrin asks.

“We found her mother shot and her father gone,” Saw says with gravity to his voice. “Taken by the Empire. He was one of their top engineers, but he deserted and hid until they found him.”

Cal swallows. So many children in this Galaxy have lost everything.

“No offense,” Greez says to Saw and wipes beer from his upper lip, “but I didn’t peg you for the caretaking type.”

“I gave my word to her mother to take care of her.” Saw breaks out in a coughing fit that brings tears to his eyes. “It seems you have become a caretaker yourself,” he says when the fit is over.

Cal purses his lips with a glance to the door where the girls disappeared.

“We found Iris not long ago on an uninhabited planet. A gang of smugglers tried to sell her to the Empire.”

“Tell us the story,” Saw says. He leans back on his chair and grabs his glass of ale. “I want to hear of everything you’ve done since we last met on Kashyyyk.”

“This is going to take some time,” Greez says with a low whistle. “Can we get another beer?”

* * *

The sun sets below the vast horizon of the rough sea. Wrea’s two moons, one silvery and one coppery, rise and spread their light between tufts of clouds. Inside the bunker, a string of bulbs gleam over the steel floors and send a yellow tinge over the partisan's complexions.

Holo books in hand, Jyn and Iris rest on top of pillows placed on the floor. The bore-fanged animal lays pressed against Jyn and purrs as she absentmindedly pets its scales. BD-1 approaches to scan the animal, but when it shows its fangs and growls in response, he hurries off with a shriek.

“No,” Iris says and searches for BD-1 with a wrinkle creasing her forehead, “don’t scare him.”

“It’s just a droid,” Jyn says, surprise painted on her face.

Iris sinks into the pillows.

“Yeah, I mean, obviously.”

She returns to her holo book but peeks from the frame to where BD-1 ran.

By the table, Saw places his lazy gaze on Cal in silence, a silence that began when Cal told him and his partisans of his plan to turn the Inquisitors. Aran flips a table knife between his fingers but stops the motion at Cal’s words.

The partisans radiate scepticism at best, hostility at worst.

“You,” Saw says in a drawl, “know better than anyone what it’s like to be hunted. To always have to look behind your shoulder for the blast that will finally kill you. You’re telling me you have compassion for these people?”

Saw's face remains motionless, his voice calm. “They’re scum, servants of a reign that enslaves the entire Galaxy. They deserve nothing but a blast between the eyes.”

Some of Saw’s men make sounds of agreement.

Cal’s stomach ties up in knots. He swipes his gaze around the people by the table.

“I know they have killed civilians to find surviving Jedi. My best friend was one of those civilians. But the Empire caught most of the Inquisitors when they were children. They were tortured into servitude. I agree that they need to be stopped, but I don’t want to kill them—not anymore.”

Saw leans back in his chair. He lifts Aran’s knife and stabs it into the board of the table.

“They may not have chosen their path, but they choose every day to stick to it. They could quit, but they don’t. They enjoy murdering people.”

Cal closes his mouth. He anticipated that Saw wouldn’t embrace his plan; still, his words sting. They’ll need to find help in other places.

He lifts his head in surprise when Greez clears his throat.

“I don’t mean to compare myself to the goons of the Empire,” he says and stares into the table, “but I know something about choosing the wrong path and staying on it.” He nods to Aran. “You knew me back when I was a sleemo—no, don’t deny it,” he says at Aran’s attempt to protest, “For a long time, I only cared about myself. I drank, gambled, got caught up in brawls. Then I met Cere. She was the first to believe in me. And I’m telling you, that changed things.”

He holds his ale and meets the partisans gazes with a tensed expression.

“I didn’t believe in myself until someone else did. That’s why I think Cal has a shot at this.” He smiles at Cal, a laconic pull to his lips. “He might be an idiot, but he’s a good kid. I’m proud of him.”

Silence ensures. Saw shifts his lazy gaze from Greez to Cal, who swallows a lump in his throat.

“You’ll need to capture them,” he says. “Set a trap.”

The air shifts. All turn to him, wide-eyed.

“That one’s easy!” Aran says with a grin. “All you have to do is set foot on the nearest planet and yell ‘Jedi here! Come get me!’

A string of chuckles erupts among the partisans in the room—none of the Mantis’ crew laughs.

“After you have caught them,” Saw continues, “without killing yourself or them, you’ll need to contain them to revoke the torture.”

“Yes,” Cal says and sits straight. His mood brightens at the way Saw speaks of alternatives.

Saw puts his fist to his mouth in a rasping cough that has Jyn peer at them from her holo book, a concerned look on her face.

“The only thing capable of holding Jedi’s…” Saw says and dunks his fist into his chest, “and Inquisitors, I guess, are local containment fields.”

Cal’s eyes spark with recognition.

“Master Tapal told me Master Kenobi was held in such a field before the battle of Geonosis!”

“I know the whereabouts of two containment fields in the Galaxy,” Saw continues. “One, on the Executrix, Moff Tarkin’s Star Destroyer. The other on Smuggler’s Moon, inside Grakkus the Hutt’s palace.”

A commotion erupts when BD-1 bleeps, Cal asks, ‘how do you know this?’ and Greez exclaims, ‘Smuggler’s Moon? That’s Nar Shaddaa!’ in a simultaneous outburst. Greez words have the rest of his crew stare at him and each other.

“Back on Bracca,” Cal says, astonished, “I planned to leave for Nar Shaddaa. I used to work with this guy called Tabbers who moved there. He owes me one.”

“Hold your fathiers!” Greez stands and plants his palms on the table. “Have you any idea how dangerous that place is? It’d be safer to fly into a Sarlacc pit! Cal, I’m telling you: it’s suicide.”

“That is what you said about Coruscant,” Merrin says flatly.

Greez voice rises to a high pitch.

“Need I remind you that you almost died in that place?”

All fall silent at the weight of Saw’s calm gaze. Jyn and Iris stare at them from the pillows.

Greezs gets back into his seat and clears his throat.

“To answer your questions,” Saw says with a look that tells he doesn’t wish to be interrupted again, “I have this information because I fought Moff Tarkin in the Salient system five years ago. We were defeated.”

The Mantis crew listens with bated breaths.

“Every crook in the Galaxy knows of Grakkus the Hutt’s obsession with Jedi relics. That’s what he stores in his vault. But it won’t be easy to get inside; he boasts the best security system in the Outer Rim.”

“Hear that?” Greez says, pointing at Cal.

“But there is a way.”

All close their mouths and wait for Saw to continue.

“Every year, he opens the vault for a selected few visitors. The new standard year is approaching, and he usually throws a party. If you can get in there…”

Cal stands. Breadcrumbs fall from his lap.

“I’ll send a message to Tabbers right away.”

Greez jumps, startled by Cal’s sudden motion and spills his ale on the table. He swears and wipes at the surface.

“Grakkus the Hutt’s new years shindigs are the most exclusive in the Outer Rim! How are you going to get in? Wave your hand and tell him you fancy the Jedi?”

“We’ll figure something out. Come on, we have to tell Cere.”

“Um,” Aran interrupts, “I’m afraid there’s a problem.”

Cal stops flat. Saw nods at Aran.

“Just after we sent our coordinates to you,” he says with a cough, “the comm tower had a malfunction. It happens now and then, but this time we’ve been unable to fix it. We went over to the tower island yesterday and got attacked by the merpeople.”

“The merpeople?” Merrin asks. She scoots to allow room for Iris, who silently returns to the table. Jyn sleeps by the pillows with an arm around the snoring lizard creature.

“Wreans. They’re native to the planet,” Aran says. “Normally, they live deep underwater and seldom breach the surface, but lately, they’ve been showing up around the tower to perform weird rituals. We lost a partisan on our last excursion. They pulled her from the shore and dragged her down. ”

“A Jedi,” Saw says with a nod to Cal, “might be able to solve the problem.” He glances at Cal’s lightsaber, clasped to his hip. “Diplomatically, if you wish… or not.”

Cal meets Merrin’s gaze. She nods at his silent question.

“We’ll do our best.”

* * *

The next morning, after a breakfast of lyophilized rations and some fried kelp, Cal approaches Aran’s small starfighter outside the barracks.

“This will allow you to land next to the tower,” Aran says.

Cal places his palm on the hull. The motion triggers a memory from that day on Bracca when he and Prauf found the ship with the resistance symbol. He shivers, more from the memory than from the cold drizzle outside.

“You’re finally getting into the cockpit, kid!” Greez says, all four hands on his hips and a grin on his face.

Iris wraps herself in a water-resistant cape borrowed from one of the partisans and gapes.

“You don’t know how to fly?”

She leans into the cockpit and starts a tirade of the functions of flips, switches, and buttons. She pulls the steering handles to demonstrate how to control the ship and indicates at the hyperdrive switch.

“That’s correct,” Aran says, astonished. BD-1 whistles in admiration.

“To make a loop,” Iris says, “you have to—”

“I think I’ll skip the acrobatics,” Cal says in a lopsided smile.

“Hey,” Greez says, “how come you know so much about piloting a ship?”

Iris smiles and wipes a strand of wet hair from her eyes.

“My aunt—”

She slams her mouth shut and takes a step back.

“I like starfighters, that’s all,” she mumbles with a blush.

Cal and Merrin meet gazes. He changes the subject and motions to the cockpit with a raised eyebrow.

“You’re sure you don’t want to..?”

Merrin shakes her head and climbs into the passenger seat.

“To learn, one must try.”

BD-1 bleeps in encouragement.

“Right,” Cal says and sits on the Fleekskin seat. The ship’s design is logical, with the gear used to start, fly, and land closest at hand. A thrill of excitement grips his chest as he grabs the steering handles.

Aran fetches two helmets, round and white, with permaplas visors.

“Here,” he says, “take these.” He hands a helmet to Cal and the other to Merrin, who scrutinizes it before she reaches back to untie her hair and place the helmet over her head. “Keep an eye out for the Wreans.”

Cal wipes a spot of soot from his helmet with his sleeve.

“Do you know why they started attacking you?”

“No idea,” Aran scratches his jaw. “We’ve never had any problems with them before.”

“We’ll see if we can figure it out.” Cal places the helmet over his head and fastens his belt. BD-1 jumps into Merrin’s lap and folds his little legs underneath him.

“You’ll be fine,” Aran says with a smile. “When you get back, we’ll make plans on how to breach that vault on Nar Shaddaa.”

Iris pats the hull of the ship.

“Remember to hold the steering handle steady to lift and to tilt it to fly forwards!” She takes a step back when Cal does a thumbs up and closes the canopy with a soft clunk. He flips the switches to the main engines, and the ship starts with a hum and a high pitched noise to the double turbines.

“I haven’t been on a ship since I was thirteen, besides the scrap-tow hovercrafts on Bracca,” he says through the communication channel. “I’m counting on you to save us if I screw this up.”

Merrin remains silent, her smile invisible behind the visor of her helmet.

Cal takes a deep breath and grasps the handles. With a light pull, the ship lifts from the ground and soars out from the island’s edge over the dark sea.

Cal has a sensation similar to that of riding the Shyyyo bird. A rush flashes through his guts as he steers the ship to cut through the air at a speed that blurs the waves’ contours. BD-1 coos; Cal’s face splits open in a grin.

“Hey,” Cal says, ”how about we take a small detour? We can take care of the comm tower in a minute. I’d like to take this chance to fly.”

“Go ahead, Jedi,” Merrin says.

Cal tilts the handles forwards, and the ship accelerates with a hiss. They rush over a small strip of land formed like a lightsaber and rise above the clouds. Cal pushes the handle and dips the ship low enough for a spray of seawater to flow over the cockpit. BD-1 shrieks with excitement in Merrin’s lap when they woosh over another large animal that sinks its broad spine into the water and exposes a gargantuan dorsal fin.

Cal pulls the ship’s handle to steer its mandibles back towards the cross of the comm tower. The rays of the sun peek through the clouds, and the silhouettes of Wrea’s two moons appear behind the veils of a thin mist to the horizon.

“I better slow down, or we’ll be coming in too hot…” Cal pulls the handle to him as Iris taught him. The ship shifts and de-accelerates but still whizzes towards the tower island at a hefty speed.

“Cal,” Merrin says and places a hand on his shoulder, “flip the switch for the turbines.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” he says in an exhale and complies.

Nothing happens.

A shower of cold sweat washes over Cal’s back. He flips the switch again; nothing.

Cal’s mind flashes with an image of hurtling through space in a small containment, the cold of steel against his back and the body of his dead Master at his feet. He clutches his master's lightsaber to his chest and presses his eyes shut. His stomach rolls from the velocity of the escape pod as it rotates towards the surface of Bracca in blind speed…

“Cal!”

He comes to his senses and pulls the handle in a panicked movement. The nose of the ship flies past the comm tower. In a screech, the starfighter swings upwards. BD-1 tumbles to Merrin’s feet in a series of upset beeps and whistles.

“I’m sorry!” Cal says through the communication system. His head spins, and his heart hammers in his chest. “I panicked. The last time I was in a small ship like this, I crashed, and—I don’t think I can do this.”

Merrin clenches the fabric of his poncho.

“Yes, you can.”

“No, I’m not a pilot. I can’t—”

“Cal. You are not that little boy anymore. You will land this ship because the Galaxy needs you. I need you.”

BD-1 agrees in a beep and a boop.

Her words seep in through his panic. The adrenaline in Cal’s veins dissolves like sugar in water.

He clutches the handle and aligns the ship to the surface of the island. The ship de-accelerates enough to touch the ground without crashing.

When the ship stops and rests still on the ground, Cal releases the grasp of the handle and takes his helmet off to breathe. Cold sweat tingles at his temples. A warm hand squeezes his shoulder; he takes it and presses a button to open the canopy in a hiss.

Merrin stands to round his seat. Without hesitation, he pulls her into his lap and buries his face in the crook of her neck. BD-1 coos by their feet.

They sit like that until his pulse slows to a normal rhythm and the tremble leaves his arms.

“Failure is not the end, remember?” she says softly. 

Cal swallows hard with a nod.

Merrin releases him to gaze over the island.

“Are you ready to explore the tower?”

“Yeah. Thank you.”

He pushes himself up after she has climbed down from the cockpit and extends his arm to let BD-1 jump his shoulders. His hands are still shaking.

The island possesses an austere beauty—a grassed field edges to cliffs that fall into the ocean in sprays of salt. The comm tower’s gigantic pillar casts a shadow on the ship from a hill where a winding staircase in stone leads to a set of doors with a green panel. Above their heads, white birds with colorful throats soar on outstretched wings and squall into the wind.

“No Wreans,” Cal says and lifts a hand to the back of his neck. “Let’s take a look at the tower.”

When they approach the stairs, BD-1 jumps from Cal’s shoulders and rounds the tower to scan the area below with his camera eye. He toots in excitement at the waters.

Cal and Merrin catch up with the droid and peer into the sea below that crash against the cliff in pulsating waves. They scrunch their noses at a salty stink.

The waters are full of dead fish. Their bodies form a layer on the water, like a thick silver stain that bobs with the waves.

“Why won’t those birds catch the fish?” Cal shades his eyes and squints at the white-feathered creatures that hover above.

Merrin pulls her hood over her head to stop the strands of her hair from blowing into her eyes.

“What killed them?”

BD-1 bleeps a series of binary and uses a windscreen wiper in a pendulum motion to his camera eye. Cal is struck by a realization and squints up the towers central.

“The tower is bleeding electricity! It’s what killed the fish. Anything in the water that goes near this cliff will be fried like the kelp we ate for breakfast.”

The Wrean sun peeks through the clouds to reveal a set of shelled creatures in a semi-circle on the cliff.

“Look. The scallops are positioned to avoid the electricity field.”

Merrin points towards a rectangular object in the water.

“There.”

Cal lifts his hand and Force pulls the cassette, attached to a hatch in the tower and tied to a wire, from the waters to the lip of the cliff. It spits tiny lightning pulses.

“We need to fix this—”

Cal’s veins tremble. He flinches as an energy bolt crashes into the tower above his head. A curious song erupts behind them; they twist to face the slope.

Multiple scaled creatures slide across the grass on muscular fins. Some hold energy bows, others staves with a lilac glow. Their bodies are covered in a shiny mucus that allows them to slide over the ground towards Cal, Merrin, and BD-1 while they chant a synchronized murmur that increases in intensity the closer they get.


End file.
